Can You Keep a Secret?
**DISCLAIMER: All characters and scenarios in this post are fictional.**
Scott couldn鈥檛 believe his eyes when he checked Facebook this morning. A new page, 鈥淪A国际传媒 Confessions,鈥 had just been created, and one of the first 鈥渃onfessions鈥 was about him! Someone shared a story where he had gotten really drunk last week and did a few things he wasn鈥檛 proud of. Granted, he wasn鈥檛 mentioned by name, but it was a unique enough situation that everyone he knew would recognize it as being about him.
Scott had heard about other schools starting pages like this, where people message the page administrator their secrets, hook-up stories, dirty deeds, and anything else that they would want to share anonymously. Scott initially thought these pages were hilarious, and even 鈥渓iked鈥 the ones from other schools just so that he could be entertained. However, now that he was reading something about him, he felt embarrassed and upset. Already it had 50 鈥渓ikes鈥 and counting, and several of his friends tagged him in the comments so that he would see it. To make matters worse, the post was anonymous, so he had no way of knowing who was spreading the story around.
Scott鈥檚 friends told him to laugh it off; it wasn鈥檛 that big of a deal. Even he had to admit that the story was objectively pretty funny, and most of the other posts on the page were relatively harmless as well. On the other hand, he could envision how people would take advantage of the anonymity and could potentially cause somebody real harm.
What do you think about Facebook college 鈥淐onfessions鈥 or 鈥淗ook-Up鈥 pages? Do you feel like this type of anonymous sharing can be hurtful and even dangerous, or do you think it鈥檚 a harmless way to tell funny stories? Have you ever submitted anything to a page like this, or been mentioned in a post?
Mar 25, 2013