Disclaimer: Consider your social media audience; is it just your close friends? Do you have the business/personal life combo? Is your pastor your “friend”? If you are good at keeping your personal and professional lives from colliding online then you can meter how you see fit bearing in mind what's online is forever.
Collectively as people we desire to connect to with others to celebrate our accomplishments, mourn our defeats and garner support when we feel mistreated or victimized. As a society, we want to be in the know. We actually take an interest in what Snooki eats for breakfast or doesn’t for that matter, we want to investigate and require visual evidence that Ron Paul once posed for a photo with a known white supremacist. Secretly or not so secretly we want people to want to know about us too.
It’s only human to want to be noticed and appreciated. Unfortunately that attention can turn negative on a dime. Without a public relations team at the ready to save us from ourselves, we can go from adored to abhorred in no time. We have to get savvy about monitoring our own image in a social media venue. It is tough to resist the urge to divulge every detail of our lives in a semi-public forum. It is equally hard not to succumb to the attention that sharing the dirty dish brings.
Case in point:
Like so many people my personal and professional lives overlap online. For the first year or so that I used Facebook I was dangerously open about all aspects of my life. I became very sick two years ago. I had seen many people post about injuries, illnesses, surgeries, divorces, etc. and it brought me pause about my own situation. I had two choices – I could publicly disclose the status of my health and gain the sympathy of a percentage of my then four or five hundred friends. Or I could keep my virtual mouth shut and seek support from my family and close friends. I chose to keep it to myself only sharing with people I encountered in person. In my opinion that was the smartest choice I could have made. It taught me a lesson in restraint and gave me a good meter for deciphering what should and should not be public information.
How do we stop ourselves from clicking that tempting “share” button and keep what should be private, private? The easiest way is to start connecting with those close to us by engaging on the level we used to before we became social media junkies. Phone a friend, visit your mom and dad, or better yet invite someone for coffee and a good old-fashioned conversation. You wouldn’t invite a colleague or an acquaintance over for a look at your panty drawer so why would you put it online for everyone to see?
Self-editing is our ally. I am not encouraging you to lie about your life but remember that you and your existence are important – they are not fodder for office chatter or social gossip. Keep these things in mind when you’re weighing whether or not to share:
-Humor doesn’t always translate
-Personal struggles, relationship breakdowns and the most intimate details of your life shouldn’t be offered up into a public forum for debate or criticism or someone's entertainment.
-Real support comes from the people who love you – not the people who friend you.
-It is very easy to type a condolence or congratulations but it is the truly conscientious individual who chooses a more personal form of communication.
My challenge for myself this week is to pay attention to what I say online and attempt to look at it from the perspective of others. I challenge you to do the same. Reach out to someone who is important to you and have a conversation. Let that person be excited for you, console you or laugh with you and be the same for them. Cheers for a week of being truly connected with your community.
