I’m not a big social media user, but Jessie Miller’s talk got me thinking critically about my digital and social media footprint as I enter the teaching profession. Even my mostly dormant Facebook account has the potential to make details of my personal life available online. It’s complicated by the everlasting nature of posts, and the way friends’ posts, photos and privacy settings can leak information to anyone who might be looking. Given the need to maintain a professional public persona, I’ll definitely be reviewing what’s available, privacy settings, and making changes so that any online profiles are not easily searchable (IE not using my full name or location).
Moving on to another aspect of Jessie’s talk: is social media use inherently harmful and how should we mediate its use in children and adolescents – I was very critical of his views. There is at this point an established body of research linking social media use and multitasking with mental health concerns, cyberbullying, sleep issues, difficulty focusing, and the list goes on… CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association summarizes some research findings in Smartphones, social media use and youth mental health. Given that developing brains may be less able to make healthy decisions around appropriate technology and social media use, I would argue for setting strong limits.
