Adam Schefter recently stirred up some controversy by tweeting the following:
Great line from @johnreporters on young people’s decisions in social-media age: “It’s time for common sense to catch up with technology.”
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 3, 2014
What are your thoughts? Do you think that young people are mostly at fault for the mishaps we commonly see on social? Does the blame (partially or in full) fall on the employer who put the young person to task without first providing them with the proper training and guidelines? Do you think that “older people” are just as susceptible to making mistakes online as “young people” are? Should young professionals be paired with more experienced professionals when it comes to engaging online on behalf of the organization?
What’s your opinion?
Where do you stand on this statement and how do you protect your organization from lacking common sense on social media (or anywhere else)? Share your thoughts, experiences and best practices in the comments section below.
P.S.
Just for fun, I thought I’d leave you with the following image… because it made me chuckle! 😉
Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted keynote speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today’s leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. Learn more about Melissa and her work here.
Less so the age of the author more that they can be lulled into a false sense of security – at least for initial mishaps. Sitting in an office/on their sofa they forget that a tweet/post sent off in haste can be read by a huge audience who are then entitled to interpret in their own unique way. Mistakes, for us all, are much more public and unforgiving.
Good point, Alex. It's far too easy to feel a false sense of security from behind our screens. Do you think employers and/or educational institutes should be responsible for educating employees/students on this reality so as to better protect themselves from preventable issues?
This is a tricky question for a number of reasons, but the technology factor is a huge piece. While young people might have a better understanding of the technologies and more creative ideas for how it's used, older and more experienced people, while they might shy away from the technology, have the benefit of experience. A lot of what we do in media and messaging nowadays hasn't changed all that much in its essentials – relationships are still relationships, the art of conversation is still important, and impulse behaviors can have catastrophic results. It all just happens a lot faster.
I don't think it has to do with age as much as it does maturity – and by that I mean the ability to stop and look strategically at the big picture, to assess the immediate and long-range impacts of an action. That isn't necessarily tied to an age.
I agree with you, Kristin. Maturity rather than age. I do, however, believe that many young people (who are so accustomed to online sharing and posting) are lacking a certain level of training/education to really help them understand potential consequences for their online actions. But hopefully this will begin to resolve as educational institutes and employers realize the need for this essential training.
I think tech might be native to young people more than older, but I'm just as tech savvy as most 25 year-olds I know in this business, It has come with learning that is tempered with wisdom and experience–much more valuable to me than just native understanding and enthusiasm. Having said that, I think the question of common sense is not age, it is experienced learning. Common sense, IMO, is informed, not innate. The greatest testament of this is the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. What we commonly think of as intuition is really informed decisions. We do lots of things by habit, but other than physiological impulses, most of it is learned behavior. Unfortunately, we see way too many people in the older generation that have no common sense because they never developed it–hello Rob Ford. There's my soapbox for the day–have at it.
Nicely said, Chris!