A negative side effect of social media revealed itself on a large scale last week after a series of Instagram comments, direct messages and texts surfaced of actor James Franco in pursuit of a much younger suitor.
The messages featured Franco propositioning the 17-year-old woman to meet up with him in a hotel room, as well as multiple pictures that served as proof that Franco was the person in contact with the woman.
For a 24-hour news cycle, the general public debated whether the whole thing was a hoax, a PR stunt aimed to create buzz for Franco’s upcoming movies or simply a bored woman’s plea for attention. The scandal came to an end when Franco confirmed the story and apologized for his mistake.
This is just one of many examples of how people misuse social media.
After taking a hilarious, yet embarrassing, photo in Tigerland, LSU students face one challenging dilemma: whether to post the image or not.
When faced with a posting dilemma such as this, the first thing I think is, “How many of my family members will comment on this?”
When you come from a close, gossip-driven family, you know even the most distant of family members will be your Facebook friend and will make some joke about how hard you’re studying on a picture you took outside of Mike’s.
Then come the jokes when you talk to your parents about how your grades are slipping, not because your classes are more difficult but because you’re spending all your time in Tigerland, as documented in all your social media sites.
Once you have decided you can handle the familial backlash to your party pics, it’s time to consider another side of the dilemma.
Will third parties be OK with the post?
In this age of social media autonomy, companies resort to checking prospective employee’s social media accounts as a new method of background checking. Do you think you’ll land your dream job when the first thing on your wall is that picture of you vomiting outside of Fred’s?
These are just two of the many things one has to consider before publishing any type of information.
During his apology, Franco said social media was the new way to meet people and how society would learn to prevent scandals like this from happening over time, but I’m not sure I agree with him.
Social media is continuing to evolve, and through this evolution more and more of our personal information is being made public.
This fact alone means that posting dilemmas will not disappear but become increasingly more complicated over time.
To expect that we will conquer the puzzle that is social media through our mistakes is a stretch.
Take Instagram for example. Users became used to taking multiple pictures and picking the best one to showcase on their accounts until Instagram video was introduced and completely changed the game.
How do we keep up with that?
The answer is not to learn from our mistakes, but to be cautious about making them.
The key to being responsible social media users is to check what message we’re trying to convey and trying our hardest to get that message across without ruining our reputation in the process.
So, when you’re leaving Tigerland and have to decide whether to post that hilarious photo or not. I highly recommend you save it for a few decades, then you can show it at parties while you remember your younger days.
This way, instead of apologizing to the whole country, you’ll just have to apologize to your mortified children.
Jose Bastidas is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from The Woodlands, Texas.