Farkas ’99: Next gen has right to create own ‘digital footprint’

Head of Instructional Services at the Portland State University Library in Oregon, Meredith Farkas ’99 warns parents about creating a digital footprint for their children of embarrassing anecdotes.

“There are things on the Internet about me that I regret. Things that embarrass me. Things that make me cringe. However, it’s nothing that I didn’t do to myself. I own it. I feel like, for the most part, I am responsible for my online persona. I created the ‘me’ that people see online (which, make no mistake, is not the ‘me’ the people around me in real life know). I don’t know that everyone can say the same, and I really wonder about the generation of kids we’re raising, some of whose every move seems to be chronicled on blogs, Facebook and in other social media. I don’t mean the innocent sharing of pictures and cute anecdotes about your kids. I mean sharing things that may one day embarrass or harm them. Sometimes it’s narcissism. But I think more often than not it’s simply not thinking about the fact that your child will one day be an adult, and that what you write on the Web has a permanence that talking with a friend doesn’t.”

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Image: via Meredith Farkas.

Friendly URL: wesconnect.wesleyan.edu/news-20130130-meredith-farkas

Related links

• Farkas ’99 encourages ‘getting out of your own story’
• Meredith Farkas’s blog
• Meredith Farkas’s American Libraries column
• On Slideshare
• On LinkedIn

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