Читать книгу Manage Your Online Reputation - Tony Wilson - Страница 11

Digital communications are here to stay, and communication through social media will only get more prevalent until something else supplants it. Online forums, blogs, and social networking sites such as Facebook have revolutionized the way people communicate with each other and share their day-to-day experiences, their opinions (thoughtful, bad, ridiculous, poorly informed, or just plain dull), their photographs, and their videos. It’s never been so easy to “publish” something, and have it read by dozens, hundreds, or even millions of people, almost instantaneously. It could be about a particular product or service offered by a business, a meal at a restaurant, the quality of rooms in a hotel, or a high school teacher or university professor. It could be about a particular person. And yes, you can read a death announcement before anyone else in the family hears about it.

A survey released by Pew Internet & American Life Project on July 2, 2010, posed a question (which was framed as two questions in the positive and the negative) that respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed:

“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage, and other relationships, I see that the Internet has mostly been a positive/negative force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.”

Eighty-five percent of respondents agreed with the positive statement and 14 percent agreed with the negative statement.

Said the Pew Internet report: “Humans’” use of the Internet’s capabilities for communication for creating, cultivating, and continuing social relationships is undeniable. Many enthusiastically cited their personal experiences as examples and several noted that they had met their spouses through “Internet-borne interaction.”

Many of the respondents agreed that “time spent online robs time from important face-to-face relationships; the Internet fosters mostly shallow relationships; [using] the Internet to engage in social connection exposes private information; the Internet allows people to silo themselves, limiting their exposure to new ideas; and the Internet is being used to engender intolerance.”

Respondents also noted that “geography is no longer an obstacle to making and maintaining connections.” However, others observed that there will be “variations of depression caused by the lack of meaningful quality relationships.”

There may also be new ways of how users define friendship and privacy that are different than how we might define those concepts or use those words in the future.

Some of the respondents commented on how they met their spouse online, reconnected with old school friends, and stayed in touch with family and friends overseas. These will all be normal things for those born of the Internet age.

So let’s look now at why it is important to manage your online reputation, and some strategies to do it.