Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

Social media does one thing really really well. It makes the maintenance of weak social connections really really efficient. Secondarily, it makes the reestablishment of weak social connections and the establishment of new weak social connections very low cost.

Facebook is full of old people because they have more weak connections, while my boy doesn't use a social media platform because in his words, "I have high school"...I'd asked him about it just this week.

What social media might give the author is the ability to continue their relationship with their editor's assistant over the next twenty years as their careers progress and paths diverge and perhaps the editor's assistant becomes an editor in their own right. Sure, TANSTAAFL. But it points both ways.

Maybe it's the discipline I've learned from years of power lifting, but I don't have any issues with social media. I'll often skip FB for days because it's not something I think about doing. I do like games though and will sometimes play one for an hour or maybe even 2 hours if it's the weekend. After that I start feeling like I need to do something productive.

As far as comments, I always try to act online as I would in real life. This means I try to avoid snark online since it is so hard convey sarcasm online. I also always think about if I was having a real conversation how would I act. If you read my comment history, most (all?) are calm, and I think are how I have disagreements in real life. I try to follow the thought process that you can shear a sheep many times, but can only skin it once.

I wrote about this last year, your online persona in relation to your personal career.

Quitting social media for personal usage is a pretty good idea though if you're always checking it.

https://sosuke.com/creating-and-taking-ownership-of-your-per...

Employers in California are in fact legally obliged to tolerate political opinions in their employees.

Quoting from http://volokh.com/2013/08/06/lawsuit-over-firing-based-on-em...

In 1937, “the California Legislature, recognizing that employers could misuse their economic power to interfere with the political activities of their employees, enacted Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102 to protect the employees’ rights.” Labor Code section 1101 provides: “No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: [¶] (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics …. [or] (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.” Labor Code section 1102 provides: “No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.” These sections are designed to protect “ ‘the fundamental right of employees in general to engage in political activity without interference by employers.’ ”

It is not a law of the universe, but it is somewhat more than fashion. In California, it is the law.

Quoting from http://volokh.com/2013/08/06/lawsuit-over-firing-based-on-em...

In 1937, “the California Legislature, recognizing that employers could misuse their economic power to interfere with the political activities of their employees, enacted Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102 to protect the employees’ rights.” Labor Code section 1101 provides: “No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: [¶] (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics …. [or] (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.” Labor Code section 1102 provides: “No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.” These sections are designed to protect “ ‘the fundamental right of employees in general to engage in political activity without interference by employers.’ ”