Saturday, July 4, 2015

Post 2: Breaching the Line between Public and Private Spheres of Life



This post will be dedicated on reflecting on the readings we were assigned. Post 3 & 4 will also be based on research as a result of the readings and the assigned videos of this class.

As I was reading “Networked:The New Social Operating System", by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman, there were multiple messages that jumped out at me.

I will discuss the first one in this blog, the thoughts that it inspired, as well as additional resources that I found as a result of the reading.

“While Information and Community Technologies (ICTSs) have shattered the work-home dividing line, they have also breached the line between the private and public spheres of life”

This is one of my biggest fears realized. I have always tried to separate my work and home life as well as my private and public life. Yet, it has been very difficult to do so considering how ICTs can be so easily linked to one another, and as a result, different aspects of life begin to merge.
For instance, when I was pursuing my bachelor’s in Education, one of my professors in Ethics class brought up Facebook. At first, I was skeptical that anything published in Facebook, could be used against you and possibly negatively affect your job. Yet, it has been brought to my attention that some employers do a search on your name before they consider you for a position. They consider this your first interview. In addition, to pre-employment Facebook screening, they can also screen you while you are employed. Please refer to this article for more information:


The article goes into detail on how and why employers screen possible candidates and the research behind it.

I remember when I first joined the ISLT program, they encouraged me to join a Facebook group. I felt pressured to link my personal Facebook account to anything professional but I ultimately decided to join because I didn’t want to “miss out” on any opportunities that would pop up through that Facebook group.

Even recently when I was creating the twitter account for this class, Twitter asked me to input my cell number for security reasons. Little did I know that it would pull up everyone on my contact list. Now I have contacts following me on my Twitter account. Something I wanted to avoid…

This is just another example of how ICTs can easily merge your personal and professional life and it is up to you to create the divisions yourself. Some people do not want to be completely transparent and available to others. I am one of those people. Does anyone else like to be “off the grid”?

Through these experiences I have learned that if I am going to use these ICTs that I should do my research on how to properly set privacy settings, availability settings, and audience settings. The book describes it as “reputation management”, which is “the selective exposure of personal information and activities”.


2 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this insightful blog! I feel a little bad that I am the first responding, because I tend to be the type that is fine with being transparent online. In fact, I often wondered if the hesitance to participate online out of fear of breaking the private/public line was an over-reaction on the part of others.

    And then I re-read Orwell's 1984 and the Edward Snowden thing happened. Since then, I have thought more deeply about the implications of sharing information online. For this class, I chose to disconnect my current accounts with my class-related activity, mostly out of regard for my friends and family who may not care to see all of my class stuff on their feeds. I also thought about not wanting my learning to be "on display" for future employers.

    In short, despite being rather transparent online, I still struggle with this. In addition, I think that the merging of personal and professional life will continue to be a topic of huge importance for people, even if they have grown up with online platforms being a constant part of their lives. For instance, many of my Facebook friends post pictures and stories of their kids on at least a weekly (if not daily) basis. My husband thinks this is awesome...he likes the idea that one day kids can go back and see their lives chronicled. Me? I'm slightly horrified. I'm not sure that I'd want to go back and see my mother's post "My daughter just took her first poo-poo in the toilet all by herself. #proudmamma".

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    1. Hi Learninglust,

      Thank you for your post. It was reassuring knowing that there are other people in the class that share the same point of view. I think it is important for me to keep both my personal life and professional life separate and I am hoping that I can successfully do that while still trying out these Web 2.0 technologies. I am up for the challenge!

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