You Can Hide but You Cannot Truly Hide - CareerEnlightenment.com

Both of these studies show that your online persona is actually reflective of your real life, highlighting that a user cannot truly create an online facade. This is logical because our social network activity is constantly validated by our friends, who wouldn’t continue to support a false image.Given that our online profile actually does reflect our personality, now we can go back to our main questionâ€" what do we do with our privacy settings? In this era of massive sharing of our personal information, can people still learn about us even if we choose to hide?Turns out, a lot of telling information can be deduced from seemingly minor aspects of your profile. For example, “Likes”, which are usually publicly available information, can tell much about your personality. Michal Kosinsky, David Stillwell and Thore Graepel tackled this notion, through studying a large sample of Facebook users. Together, they analyzed a pool of 58,466 Facebook users and found that by studying the page s an individual likes, you can draw accurate conclusions about their personality, demographics, and social media presence.Zuckerberg’s take on this emerging social norm is that individuals are more open with their personal information. In today’s society it seems as if true privacy is often unattainable. Since judgement on your personality will be made anyway, choosing to hide your personal information can be questioned, or perceived as though you have something to hide.Our verdict? Instead of hiding on social media â€" use it to your advantage. Be mindful of your social media past and continue to manage what you post in the future. Maintain an image that portrays your true self in a positive light.Get started with your social media cleaning  here  and begin shaping your positive online reputation!To check out how to clean up your Facebook for future employers, click here!