Blog 6: What Happens in Vegas Stays on Facebook

On March 9, Katie Felten of Patient Care and Emily Lenard of Wired Wisconsin visited the UW-Whitewater campus to give a lecture entitled "What Happens in Vegas Stays on Facebook."

The purpose of the lecture was to teach students they must be mindful of how they use social media.

Lenard gets paid to be on Facebook. She gave a tutorial on how to use Facebook. She told students that they aren't entitled to give out personal information to employers. Anything that we want to stay private, we are able to do so by barring people from looking at some information in our profile.

I thought the information she gave in her lecture was very informative. The main point she made was that you must take into account this statement before you post anything or get tagged in any photo on Facebook: “would my Grandma be okay with it?”

And that makes so much sense. If you’re not doing things on Facebook that wouldn’t be acceptable by everyone’s standards, then why should you do it?

Felten gave a talk about Linkedin, which was founded in 2003. She said that Linkedin is more professional than Facebook. The goal of Linkedin is to show your whole presence in your respective field.

Felten said recommendations are important. “Not only do you think you’re great, but other people think you’re great as well,” said Felten.

I thought her talk kind of dragged on, and it was very hard for me to keep my attention focused on her.

Overall though, both speakers presented important ideas about how you should not give away too much information about yourself over social media.