In the event that an employer was to examine my V+R map, I don’t think I would be too concerned with what they saw. There are certainly some areas of my online presence that I wouldn’t necessarily want to show to potential employers but my easily accessible online presence is both pretty “locked down” so to speak, and also relatively appropriate for work. My social media pages are private, and even after gaining access to them, all the content is innocuous. This is partly because of the work I’ve done throughout my life, which often blurs the lines between coworkers and friends pretty heavily. Partly due to this, and partly due to my tendency to delete or private old content that I posted when I was younger my social media and general online presence is very appropriate for work. An employer would certainly be able to tell some things about me from my V+R map, my age for one. I’m old enough that people seem to disagree whether I am a millennial or a generation z, and I think my social media use is somewhat of a clue for that. Although irregularly, I still use Facebook which something younger than I am more or less don’t do. I don’t use TikTok, though I know a wide variety of people do including those both older and younger than me. Also interesting is that there are several services I use that are meant for more social aspects that I don’t use for that, but instead for more personal use.
Hi Lia,
I think you and I are both very lucky that we have never been known to post anything and everything onto our socials. I had so many friends in high school who would post blatantly illegal behaviour without a worry about future consequences and the posts are all still on their public accounts years later. For me, though, the only place you could find embarrassing photos of me are on my mom’s Facebook page. I like that you think people could possible guess your age based on your V + R map. In my experience, everyone has such different social media habits that it is impossible to tell. I always find myself surprised when someone over the age of 25 says they use TikTok daily, because I just never got into it myself and can’t imagine someone older than me actively participating in that community.
Hi Justine!
Thank you so much for your comment. I agree, I was very fortunate that the extent of the content I wouldn’t want an employer seeing is reserved to embarrassing photos. It’s very interesting that your high school classmates still have all of that content public. I know lots of people who posted less than appropriate stuff online when they were younger but they have since “scrubbed” their online presence. Do you think that these people will ever do that, or are they just unconcerned with how that could come back later? It’s also very interesting that you feel differently about social media and its relationship to age, you’re absolutely right that there are plenty of people of all ages who use them! I’m also pretty surprised when I come across people in their 30’s making ticktock, it seems so much like a “teenage” platform but there is clearly a lot of variety. I have definitely noticed no one younger than me seems to use Facebook much anymore, though I wonder if that could also be a geographical thing? I wouldn’t be surprised if people across Canada even used social media differently.