Facebook - Now Even More In Your Face(book)
Better delete that "Crazy College Nights" photo album...
Job seekers around the country have been reporting a strange new trend in the hiring practices of potential employers - the collection of Facebook usernames and passwords. Indeed, in the last few months it has become increasingly common for potential employers to request an applicant's Facebook login credentials so that they may explore their wall/timeline posts, friends lists, photos, and even personal messages.
Having a prospective employer accessing the last few years of your life in digital form seems like a strange and dangerous practice to us. Millions of people around the world use Facebook for private communication as well as social networking, and allowing a potential employer to root through your every digital communication with some friends and family members could feel more invasive than having someone dig through your closets and drawers. Indeed, while defendants of the new practice consider it a progressive step in effectively monitoring employee behaviors and history, most can agree this crosses an unacceptable boundary of privacy invasion. There are several bills to make this practice illegal in various states - North Carolina is not yet one of them.
In other Facebook news, a recently released study suggests that, the more someone uses Facebook for "friend collecting" purposes, the higher they score on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) questionnaire, a questionnaire which deals with anti-social, narcissistic tendencies. While the data is correlative and the results of an isolated study, it is a good reminder to make sure that you're using your social media outlets as a way to engage in pro-social activities and networking in order to gain value from your interactions, rather than seeking support and approval in an ultimately anti-social fashion.
