Non-Fiction Reading Response: "Guess Who's Looking at Your Facebook Page?" Alessandra Potenza (Upfront)

          According to the Upfront article, "Guess Who's Looking at Your Facebook Page?" by Alessandra Potenza, college admissions officers and employers are using social media, like Facebook, for a background check on school and job applicants. Many people are losing their jobs and being turned down from big colleges because of their interactions on these online sites.

          Throughout the article, the author wants readers to understand the negative impact of social media on your economic and academic life. For example, Potenza begins with a huge sentence starter that gets you hooked right in to her piece, "she posted her Facebook status update on a Friday night in July. By Monday, she was fired.", here the author not only makes you want to read her story to figure out why she was fired, but also gives you a hint as to what her article is going to have to do with. Potenza then continues on to give more real world examples that social media can have that you don't want it to have. The topic makes me want to get rid of the social media that I use, like Instagram. The way she presents her reasons make you realize how enjoyable things can turn their backs on you. Here's another example from the text that convinces me into getting rid of my online profiles, "At Pitzer college in Claremont, California, an applicant was denied admission because of offensive comments he had posted on Facebook about one of his teachers.", by the end of the article, my mind was made up. I think that it's a fair way to give these types of background checks, it's simple, don't post negative things and don't be impulsive, think before you post.

          However, the author didn't show much bias in the article, in fact none was actually present. Although, there is a small box that explains some tips "to tweet or not to tweet". Potenza stated her facts and supported them with evidence in an objective tone, giving a full summary on her main idea. Something I admired in her article, were the small anecdotes she included throughout her whole plot. Each of them explained the different ways that social media can be used for background checks, all in real life situations. I cherished each of these anecdotes because of the way they were presented, and because they made me understand what I should and should not do on social media.

          Now that I have read this article, it has changed my thoughts on Instagram, Facebook and many more of these types of applications. I realize that everything students post from my school might just affect their future academic life. Tons of kids on social media like Instagram, are always cursing and posting weird stuff that are certainly questionable. I would also like to further investigate on these "background checks" and maybe get some results and tallies on young adults who have been rejected from school or work because of their interactions with social media. I predict that in the next few years the numbers will rise sharply.

 

Upfront Magazine, New York Times, "Guess Who's Looking at Your Facebook Page?", Alessandra Potenza