It doesn't matter whether or not you have a Facebook account. It doesn't matter that you deleted your MySpace when it made you look like a tool. It doesn't matter if you thumb your nose at the Internet altogether -- your face is out there.
Creepy as it sounds, our generation is pretty much conditioned to accept a certain lack of personal privacy. We've all heard the ranting stories about people losing their jobs over their online activities, and we've listened to the dire warnings that emerge from these stories with the same yawning brush-off we give to preachers of similar messages. We get it. Don't drink and drive. Smoking is bad for you. The Internet is forever. Insert eye roll.
I would shrug it off as sensationalist myself, except for the fact that IT IS ENTIRELY TRUE. Check out what Sean Tevis, a 39-year-old Kansas House of Representatives hopeful, had to deal with during his November bid for a seat. He lost. Granted, he's a Democrat, and he ran against a long-standing conservative incumbent. But his opponent actually chose to dig silly photos out of Tevis' friends' profiles and mail them to voters. What will our generation have to cope with when we're up for running the country? Just how far does our online persona reach? The Internet never forgets. The Internet is vengeful. And it is a bigger, more in-depth part of our lives with each successive year.
Try to think of every group event you've been to, and imagine the possibilities.
We shouldn't have to clean up our online presence to cover up what we choose to do in our own time. We shouldn't have to watch what we put on our status messages or refrain from posing in front of a monument while making silly faces. But until we can develop better protections against the use of our online lives to determine our employment or enrollment status, we need to try, at the very least, to moderate what gets onto the Intertubes.
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