A recent story by the BBC has highlighted the possible hazards of using social networking sites, particularly during work hours. The article, published on the 22 May, discussed the recent case where a teacher in the area of Argyll and Bute is understood to have posted up to 38 updates a day on the Twitter site. Many of the posts featured information about her classes and students and were posted during working hours.
Although this can be considered a unique case and those working in adult, further and higher education shouldn’t feel they are unable to use social networking sites such as Twitter, this story does illustrate the need to take care with the information that we allow people to see and when we choose to post it.
When using Twitter this is really easy to do, and below are a few tips on ways to control who sees what you’re updating on Twitter:
- Check who is following you – this will enable you to block anyone you do not wish to see your “tweets” (updates).
- Set your privacy settings – again this will limit who sees your updates and also enable you to change your user name so it is not your actual name.
- Don’t talk about work in your “One Line Bio” - Twitter offers a one-line biography of up to 160 characters with which to describe yourself. Consider mentioning your hobbies or other interests instead of your job title or where you work.
- Your profile picture: If you don’t want colleagues or students to follow you on Twitter, you might not want to put up your own photo. Consider using a graphic or some sort of icon instead.
To read our full factsheet on Twitter please click here.
Facebook also continues to be a very popular social networking site among both pupils and teachers and again there are steps that you can take to ensure people are only able to view certain information. This can involve who you invite to be a friend or how to create a new group. If you would like to know how to control your privacy settings please read our factsheet, Facebook – Privacy settings. You can also do the same on your MySpace page by viewing our factsheet MySpace privacy settings.
College and University Support Network would also advise that you do not visit any social networking sites during work hours, particularly if you are posting new information that is updated on the homepage of the sites.
The popularity of social networking sites can also make it possible for people to make comments and images available to a much wider audience. This can often take the form of cyberbullying, which can cause just as much pain and anxiety than traditional forms of bullying.
