Should I Worry About Social Media Getting Me Fired?

00:00:00.000 | All right, final question here comes from Helen. Helen says,

00:00:08.600 | Can you talk about the dangers of social media in two

00:00:10.640 | particular contexts, stalkers, and people who put their jobs

00:00:16.280 | at risk by silly things they post? Both of these are real

00:00:20.320 | issues. Helen, these are good. I'm glad you brought these up.

00:00:23.640 | There's lots of issues that come with having a kind of constant

00:00:27.800 | interactive interaction with basically the entire world in a

00:00:32.080 | wide scale platform with a homogenized interface. So

00:00:34.880 | everyone just looks the same to everyone else. Yes, stalkers are

00:00:37.560 | a big, big deal. You get weird. Sometimes it's just trolls. But

00:00:40.960 | sometimes it can be more scary than that. Tim Ferriss have

00:00:44.520 | talked about this. Tim Ferriss has huge issues with this.

00:00:46.920 | People find them, they look up his address and real estate

00:00:50.040 | records, they crazy people get obsessed with them. So yeah,

00:00:53.240 | there's a cost to putting yourself out there. Now Tim

00:00:54.920 | Ferriss is very famous. But why expose yourself to those costs?

00:00:59.360 | You know, especially if you don't get the whatever the fame

00:01:02.720 | and fortune that comes with that fame. Social media just allows

00:01:06.000 | you to expose yourself to this type of issues without the

00:01:08.000 | reward. And then people who put their jobs at risk. Yes, it's a

00:01:10.880 | big source of stress. That's a big source of stress. You hear

00:01:16.520 | these stories because they get captured and amplified and

00:01:20.720 | spread of individuals that said the wrong thing. You know,

00:01:26.040 | whatever, it was a joke that that landed flat or was taken

00:01:29.400 | out of context, or they weren't at their best, and then their

00:01:32.240 | their job is gone. Yes, there's a fear of that happening to you.

00:01:36.200 | But way more pervasive is the fear. I mean, that could

00:01:40.240 | actually happen. But the fear that that could happen is just

00:01:42.920 | going to pervade your life if you've decided that I'm going to

00:01:45.200 | just post a lot of things on social media. I do not

00:01:48.640 | understand. This cultural belief we had is something I've really

00:01:54.680 | pushed back on a lot. Like everyone has to be on these

00:01:56.800 | platforms using them. They don't and most people shouldn't be

00:02:00.280 | most people should not be on Facebook, or Twitter or

00:02:03.280 | whatever, sharing their thoughts about everything. I mean, I know

00:02:05.720 | it presses some buttons, but people don't care. They're not

00:02:07.880 | following you. They don't really care. But you're giving

00:02:10.320 | yourself all these stresses by being out there in the public

00:02:12.920 | eye. I mean, I'm barely in the public eye. And there's like 80%

00:02:16.560 | of it I hate. Why would you want to do this voluntarily? I mean,

00:02:21.280 | this video camera makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I'm

00:02:24.120 | like somewhat uncomfortable with people knowing what I look like

00:02:26.760 | I'm an academic writer, I like you know, books to come out. Now

00:02:29.440 | I thought this was important, because this information is

00:02:33.160 | important and has to be broken up into whatever. And we've

00:02:36.160 | talked about this whole thing. But why bring this upon yourself

00:02:39.080 | the stress of weirdos that can now follow me the stress of what

00:02:42.920 | if I say something wrong, and I get fired. And again, whether or

00:02:44.880 | not that's actually going to happen doesn't matter. The fear

00:02:46.920 | is causing issues in your life. And there's other things Helen

00:02:50.400 | that you know, you're not missing here that can be just as

00:02:52.040 | bad. The stress of seeing someone say something negative

00:02:55.880 | about you or what you said. We're not wired to handle that

00:02:59.680 | we're wired to take that very seriously. Because historically,

00:03:02.240 | when someone is saying, you know, you're terrible, it was

00:03:06.320 | someone in our tribe, and it meant that we were probably

00:03:08.080 | doing something terrible. Now it's just sport on Twitter, but

00:03:11.720 | why expose yourself to that? This cultural idea that if you

00:03:16.440 | have to be on social media, it's weird, if you're not, I think

00:03:18.640 | it's just crazy. I think social media should be a thing that

00:03:21.680 | like for some people, like has a very clear use. But it's not a

00:03:25.960 | universal. It's not like if you're not on Twitter, it's

00:03:29.840 | deciding to ride a horse instead of driving a car. Or you know,

00:03:33.840 | you don't own a television, I think it should be way more

00:03:35.920 | narrow than that most people don't need to be on there. Most

00:03:38.440 | people, at least posting on there, most people's life would

00:03:41.320 | be significantly less stressful if they weren't for all these

00:03:43.880 | type of reasons. There's a lot of negative externalities to

00:03:46.920 | interactive social media use. And Helen, you were right to

00:03:50.080 | bring this up. Because it's yet another reason why we should be

00:03:52.680 | way more careful about these technologies, and be way more

00:03:56.640 | suspicious about the current cultural climate that at least

00:04:00.240 | until a minute ago, basically made it seem like if you were

00:04:04.000 | not on all these platforms, sharing your thoughts with the

00:04:06.800 | world that somehow there was something wrong about you. Being

00:04:10.440 | in the public eye is a weird place to be. It's a fraught

00:04:13.280 | place to be. Don't throw yourself into that for no other

00:04:16.680 | reason than just people thought it would be cool to have that

00:04:20.800 | app.

00:04:21.400 | [music]

Should I Worry About Social Media Getting Me Fired?

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