There’s nothing like the dopamine rush you get when that little heart pops up on your post. The feeling when someone likes, comments, or shares your post is euphoric, and, momentarily, it makes you wonder why anyone has ever criticized social media. After all, everybody’s on it: posting, reposting, and scrolling. But even with how normalized the apps have become, it seems there is still a lot we have to learn about how to behave online.
A few weeks ago, a first-year student posted a video on their private Snapchat story repeatedly using racial slurs and spewing hateful statements. The video quickly took campus by storm, and soon it was all over social media — and so was the student’s full name, dorm number, and old videos of them from high school. While Penn is still deciding what institutional consequences the student should face, the social consequences are clear: Clubs, other students, internships, and jobs won’t want the student associated with them. That student has ruined their life. Aside from the anger the student body is experiencing, there’s also the burning question: How could a student smart enough to get into an Ivy League, a student who spent years working for these opportunities, choose to throw it all away over a Snapchat story?
We tend to feel safer than we should online. We treat posting like our personal journal, often revealing too much information. There’s this idea that the online world and the real world are two separate things, which gives people a lot of confidence while posting, when in reality these worlds are entirely intertwined. Because of the false separation, people don’t realize the consequences of their online activity.
Your social media presence has a very real impact on your academic and professional life. Penn has a code of conduct outlining regulations for students. Most students don’t realize that Penn has “time, place, and manner” guidelines that change the punishment of hateful expression based on context. If a student breaks the code, punishment could range from academic probation to expulsion. But any disciplinary action hinders your academic future, especially regarding internships or graduate school. That picture of you holding a red solo cup or that video of you admitting slightly more than you should may seem harmless now, but it’s never inconsequential — not at Penn and not in the professional world.
Once you begin working at an establishment, every part of your life becomes affiliated with them. You agree to be a representative of that company, and they have the right to represent themselves as they see fit. Your online activity — new posts, old posts, and even content you didn’t post but are still pictured in becomes part of that representation. If your content doesn’t reflect the company’s values, it could result in a serious career risk.
The internet truly is forever. While you may feel that your private posts online stay private, that is most often not the case. Once you post something, it’s open for people to share, screenshot, or simply talk about. After all, you’re posting for others to see, and once someone sees something, it often can’t be unseen. It’s always a good idea to take a step back and think about what you’re posting and how it might impact your future self. No amount of regret can erase something from the internet. The only way is to stop it before it even starts.
Maybe the biggest issue with online activity creating real-world scandals is the lack of accountability. In general, we tend to shift the blame away from ourselves to avoid consequences or protect our dignity. But the truth is, an Ivy League student should know better than to jeopardize their entire future. With our knowledge and education, we should be able to make judgment calls when it comes to how we represent ourselves; we need to start taking accountability. No more using our youth as an excuse to impact our future, no more arguing that “it was just one post,” no more pretending that the online world doesn’t affect us. We have to take pride in how we represent ourselves now, so we don’t have to regret it in the future.
CHARLOTTE PULICA is a College first year from Enoch, Utah studying criminology and economics. Her email is cpulica1@sas.upenn.edu.
