While attending the Institute for Innovation in Education Gathering last week, I had a conversation with an educational consultant who was very complimentary of the work I have been doing to promote public writing on venues such as Scholarly Voices, Film Studies, and College History. He was impressed that I am helping students develop a positive on-line presence.

As part of our discussion, the consultant told me that he had once worked on a top secret project that allowed students to intern with various companies. Because the project was truly top secret, he could not share details. However, he was able to relate part of the process used to select students. The companies Goggled the potential interns and also checked their Facebook and other social media accounts.

Many students were disqualified from this opportunity because of the photographs and comments they posted on-line. Once they found out that their on-line postings would be reviewed, other students did not even bother to apply for the internships. Although the consultant was unable to provide any details, it is far too easy to find examples of individuals whom have lost jobs or had other types of negative repercussions because of their on-line postings.

One way that some students have found to get around leaving a footprint is use technologies such as Snapchat. Snapchat allows individuals to take and alter a photograph before sending it to friends. The recipient can view the photograph from between one to ten seconds depending on the amount of time selected by the sender. After the allotted time, the image disappears.

During a break in today’s class, my students showed me how to use Snapchat. For the demonstration, a student took a photograph of me. She drew a funny hat on my head and then sent it to another student. He showed me the photograph on his phone and told me that I had ten seconds to view it before the image disappeared.

I told my students that I wanted to write about Snapchat and asked the first student if she would take another picture. She took the picture. Before sending it to her colleague, she added a crown and the words “King Berg” to the image. Once the second student showed me the image on his phone, I took a photograph of it. The following conversation followed:

Berg: “It doesn’t go away in 10 seconds.”

Students: “It would have been easier to take a screen capture instead of a photograph.”

While the images might technically disappear, Snapchat photographs can easily leave an unintended digital footprint. An April 2014 study found that 70% of college students post to Snapchat daily and that 35% of those students believe that Snapchat gives them the most privacy of social networking sites.  Any notion of privacy is misguided.

In fairness to Snapchat, they acknowledge that “By default, Snaps disappear from the screen once they are viewed – unless your friend decides to keep it, such as with a screenshot or separate camera.” However, the ability to easily capture Snapchat photographs is not universally acknowledged. For example, wikiHow does not mention it in their directions and my students initially told me that the photograph would only last 10 seconds; a claim repeated on various websites that discuss Snapchat.

During our conversation, the consultant and I agreed that there is no assurance of privacy once something is posted on-line. Even making an image available for only 10 seconds can insure that the image follows the sender forever.

Postscript: Why Not Use the Consultant’s Name?

I would like to give the consult credit for his insights. However, even though he did not share any more details than I included in this essay, I do not want to create a digital footprint that indicates that he talked to me about a secret project. If they are smart, his future clients will Google him before they decide if he has the discretion necessary to hire for their projects.  When they do, “Ten Seconds to Forever” will note appear in the search results.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

 

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