Social media was supposed to be about your social life and not about your career. And of course social life doesn't help in career (less time for working/studying). How a post changes someones social life (positive/negative) is a question, but I think must 16 year old teens are much better at it than the author.
Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
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Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#12Already quit Facebook, but this article just convinced me to quit LinkedIn too.
LinkedIn works if you just treat it like an online CV; Keep your details and work history up to date, and ignore all the other social crap. My last two positions came from recruiters finding me via LinkedIn, so for some disciplines it still has merit.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#13Already quit Facebook, but this article just convinced me to quit LinkedIn too.
I don't use it because I'm coming to the end of my working life, I don't expect to interview again. However if I was earlier on in my career I would be managing my Linkedin profile quite carefully.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#14The underlying issue is that we are going to see if the coming nationalist / populist policies will break down mundialism and its pretence for the educated white-collars to live in one single, global, always connected community.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#15This reads more like adjusting how you use social media than quitting it altogether. The overly sensationalist headline probably obscures what the actual point of the article is. If you're trying to turn social media into your career - say, being a journalist but only tweeting about things - then, no, that's probably not going to work. This seems to be what the article is railing against. If however, you're using soc…
Yeah I think the author would agree with you that moderate use of HN is probably fine, but FB, Twitter and Linkedin are probably useless and altogether harmful.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#16Only in * (fear of Godwin point reference) society do you fear to have opinions.
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Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#17Good, tightly written article. I think there's another reason I was expecting to see but didn't - when people say "social media" they usually mean Twitter, and Twitter seems to be optimised for creating huge dramas and flamewars. I think it must be the character limit. You can't say anything really interesting in 140 characters, so much of what's said ends up being so compressed all nuance and explanation is lost. Also the site encourages you to just blurt out whatevers on your mind without thinking about it. It's no surprise that Donald Trump had his Twitter access taken away from him towards the end of his campaign.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#18There is also another aspect. In theory your personal life and work are separated. Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. But many people (sadly even on HN) think it is ok to fire people, based on their opinions.
I'm going to guess that a lot of HN does NOT think it is OK to fire people for their opinions - however if your core beliefs are out of line with a companies beliefs then it just might make you a bad FIT for the company. Not about your opinion, but about you fit with a group of people who's opinion and beliefs are opposite.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#19Great article :). Cal Newport has some reaaaallly important ideas. I encourage you to read his book Deep Work in which he explains how to create deep, complex stuff.
Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It
#20There is also another aspect. In theory your personal life and work are separated. Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. But many people (sadly even on HN) think it is ok to fire people, based on their opinions.
I'd put a slightly different spin on that. Instead of saying "personal life and work are separated," I'd say "the public and the private sphere are separated."
When you post on Facebook or Twitter, you're publishing content in the public sphere, deliberately. Published ideas are for public consumption and judgement. If you don't want those ideas and opinions to be judged, don't publish them. Talk to your friends and family about them: keep them in the private sphere.
There's a perverse modern idea that you don't have an identity unless it's a public identity. You barely exist unless you're seen to exist in Instagram pictures, Facebook posts, and Tweets. Not only don't you exist unless you build a social media identity, but because identity is sacrosanct, whatever you publish must be accepted without reservation and judgment — because it's just you being you.
That's bullshit. You have a private identity. You don't have to publish your opinions in the public sphere, and if you do everyone has every right to judge those opinions. If you don't want to be judged, keep it private.