We Are All Doomed Part Two

While looking through the blogs, I came across Stellar Dreamer’s blog post about the article she did for, We Are All Doomed. The article, “Why Facebook is Bad For You", from The Sun news broad casting site, is concerned with the idea that Facebook is hurting users ability to get a job, let alone hold one down.  The thesis of the article doesn’t seem to be, DON”T Use Facebook, it’s more focused on informing the readers that there is a possibility that what you say, or the pictures you post can hurt.

The article even goes into a large generalization of what society does, and/or doesn’t do. “People don’t think about employers reading their Facebook pages and kids don’t think about their parents going online to check up on them. But an increasing number do.” And goes on to say that, “Recent research by an American university found 23 per cent of employers reviewed candidates’ profiles on social networking sites.”  Although this does SEEM like an impressive number, it could be easily debunked just because the information that is given was “research “done by “an American university”. Why not name the university the research came from? And when I tried to find these statistics, I couldn’t find any hard evidence to back this statement up. It was all other news articles and blogs that talked about the matter.

The article also says, “There have also been a number of cases of people being fired for criticizing their employer on Facebook…But it isn’t just criticism that can get you fired. It may be that you have posted pictures of yourself doing things your boss doesn’t think were suitable.” This doesn’t surprise me, but I’m not sure if that statement is based on here-say and/or a few scattered cases here and there.  However, I did find many news articles and things that said “ways to get fired because of Facebook.” Some from the most absurd to the most telling of human idiocy.  If you’re interested, check out, 17 People Who Were Fired For Using Facebook, some of them are very stupid it’s funny.

Another bit of interesting information this article gives is, “Other institutions have also used Facebook. Oxford University last year used the site to help discipline students for chucking flour and eggs around as part of their post-exam celebrations.”  This does just sound like another piece of gossip but it is most certainly not.  An article from Tech Dirt, Oxford Fines Students For Post-Exam Celebrations By Trolling Facebook,supports this line of information however there doesn’t seem to be much more on the subject. Perhaps it is because Oxford did not want a scandal who knows.

                This article from The Sun seems like a good article at first glance, but it is all opinion, with little to no evidence. Stellar Dreamer’s blog post was very good at breaking down the article, and its content, but I don’t think an actual conclusion was made about the evidence itself. But the Article is flawed, and needs a lot more concrete evidence to support the things it claims. It is more of a personal opinion, and either you agree with what it is saying or you don’t. But saying that it does make some good points, and I think that those points should really be thought about, because it is possible for your life to be ruined by Facebook.

-zombiegirl