Tag: social media

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Your Online Reputation Matters

Online Reputation Matters

Your online reputation matters, like it or not, in the same way that your offline reputation counts.

No wonder I don’t have a big online personal presence, though it wouldn’t hurt to enhance it, as my personal brand is linked to UIO, which does have a pretty good online reputation, thanks to our social media manager.

But here is the thing to remember, the thing that terrifies me—everything you say and do online becomes a part of your online record. Yeah, you have an online record and all it takes is a quick search to pull it up.

Of course, there are privacy matters but make no mistake about it, privacy can become a little murky when posting comments, photos, etc… Whatever you post, well there is a trail, forever!

Gosh, forever is a long time and can and will follow you around from your teens, to university, to new relationships, to potential jobs and so on. So, as long as your posts represent you, your personal brand, and you can stand by them and not behind them in shame or in front of them to conceal them, you are good to go.

What a heavy burden to bear, living in front of a lens, that is, all the time. Sure, we all like to reflect on memories but there are few things we’d like to forget about, too.

Like the time that I sat humiliated in the stands during a basketball game and my boyfriend, who knew nothing about me intimately, nothing, decided to plant his hands upon my coated chest (I had on a puffer coat). And even if he had known me intimately, how disrespectful was that? Whatever happened to r-e-s-p-e-c-t? Obviously, this has left a scar on my psyche, but I do remember squirming my way out of it somehow and getting another boyfriend.

Imagine me finding a photo of the scene online the next day, the next month, the next year, the next decade. I’d be traumatised today. Thank goodness this was pre-online dominance for socialising. Thus, I was able to restore my reputation without too much of a fuss. For starters, I had much less of an audience to deal with.

Make no mistake about it, the thought of not having an online presence is unreasonable to ask nowadays, considering all the goodness that comes from social media such as broadening your horizons and communicating with people throughout the world. Without it, sharing my expat experiences or promoting UIO podcast would be incredibly challenging or downright impossible.

So, what can you do to protect your online reputation?

Don’t post inappropriate visual or written content!

And don’t be tempted to comment on inappropriate content, either. It might seem harmless and fun, but it could easily come back to haunt you.

Be mindful of others, only posting comments and photos of them with their permission.

Stick to the offline rule of refraining from heated discussions about religion, sex and politics, particularly with strangers, unless of course, you have a platform that warrants you to do so.

And finally, check out Online Safety with Charlotte Aynsley from series 3 of UIO podcast for more hot tips on staying safe online and protecting your reputation. It’s all about you inside out!

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UIO Launches Wait Awhile For Teenage Girls

UIO, the podcast for teen girls, launched our  Wait Awhile initiative, to encourage teenage girls to slow down and reclaim their teenage years to avoid unnecessary regrets. For years now, I have watched the world of teenage girls change rather radically.  I had suspected for some time that due to modern day pressures, girls were being sexualised earlier and earlier, narrowing the gap between being a girl and a woman.

Our Wait Awhile survey not only confirms my concerns but also reveals the hidden story behind the trend that is seeing an increase in pressures such as sexting, tattooing, cosmetic surgery and missing out on real life experiences and often with regret.

In our news regularly now, we are hearing and seeing tragic stories about self-harm and even suicide. Much of the pressure does come from social media but social media does not happen in a vacuum.  Teenage girls tell me that this notion of being perfect and happy all the time is impossible to live up to on and offline and to try, whether it is by filtering photographs online or trying to fit into an uncomfortable space offline, requires great compromise and can therefore cause unprecedented stress and anxiety.

UIO, through our podcasts and our Wait Awhile initiative, want to relieve girls of this undue pressure. Admittedly, the teen years have always been a challenge but the modern day pressures for girls are unprecedented.

We want to hear from you–teen girls and have provided a platform on our page for you to talk about your experiences, tell us how we can help and how others can help, too.  One thing we are already doing is supporting The Telegraph’s statutory duty of care effort to be imposed on social media companies to better protect children from online harms, as related to teenage girls.

Keep watching this space for more on Wait Awhile, you can follow us on Twitter (@uiowaitawhile). And if you missed it, you can catch up with my recent BBC television appearance on the Victoria Derbyshire show on 23rd April 2019 via iplayer until mid-May.  As always, it is all about you, the teenage girl.

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What Is Personal Development Anyway?

It’s Elizabeth and I’m delighted to once again be invited to guest blog on the UIO podcast page.

This week I will be talking about personal development, a topic that will be covered also in our upcoming podcast in December.

Personal development is an often used but rarely explained term. For me, the term refers to investing in myself so that I can manage myself effectively regardless of what life might bring my way. Personal development has allowed me to be proactive and rather than wait for good things to happen, I try to get out there as much as possible and make them happen.

An example of this was the time I was made redundant from a high profile role in I.T. while on maternity leave with my first child. Initially, I was devastated and didn’t have a clue what to do. What would we do for money? How would we pay the bills? Would anyone else want to employ me? Would I have to cut my precious maternity leave short? The worries seemed endless.

Fortunately, I had just read an article on personal development and as an already optimistic person whose ‘glass is always half full,’ I decided to take this situation as a positive, rather than a negative, opportunity and used the time to reflect personally about what it was I actually wanted to do with my life – possibly for the first time ever.

I decided I wanted to become self employed and do a role whereby I could not only earn enough financially, but also work around my baby and enjoy spending the cherished early years together. I then retrained to do exactly that. It hasn’t always been easy and I’ve had my fair share of struggles, but I haven’t looked back since. I now work around both my beloved children and I’m doing something I actually really enjoy.

Personal development therefore begins with self awareness– know who you are and be it!

As we approach the New Year, like most people, I use it as an opportunity to set my ‘New Year resolutions.’ In so doing, I feel it is just as important to have a plan to realise my goal, as it is to know what it is I actually want to achieve.

An example of this is my yearly quest to set about losing weight! More often than not, my good intentions only lasted until the end of January (if that sometimes!), as I never had a plan to help me achieve it. Simply stating “I will lose weight” isn’t going to get the job done! With this in mind, last year I devised a course of action and by mapping out details specifically, I actually achieved my goal.

Personal development therefore continues with having a plan – know what you want and go out and get it!

To conclude therefore, my journey to self awareness has led me to understand that personal development is about taking the time and, making the commitment, to invest in my greatest resource–me. I think that when I put effort into developing myself on a personal level, the rewards can be amazing. I may not always achieve my goal, but I genuinely feel that I am experiencing a richer and more rewarding life by committing to pursuing my own objectives.

So, don’t be put off because the results are not always the desired outcome but do remember that to achieve what you want in life is to know that the key to success lies in the ability to manage yourself in a variety of situations. That ability comes through making a commitment to personal development and I firmly believe that this is the first step on the path to personal fulfilment.

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It’s Personal: To Share or Not to Share

Online Reputation Matters

Having friends online to share the good, the bad and the indifferent news has its pros and cons. The best part, if you ask me, is being connected to other people, having like-minded people to celebrate with or even to commiserate with during times of needs. Admittedly, however, I am not that comfortable with commiserating publicly, although it works a jewel for some people. I tend to send direct messages if for some reason I am unable to pick up the phone and call or see someone face-to-face. For me the going public with grief  somehow strips away the walls of privacy I need to come to terms with the matter.

Managing feelings when something sad or tragic happens is complicated unto itself without adding the worry of having an audience. I sort of freeze up if you will and can’t process what I am feeling in the first little while and have found it futile to try to express anything sensible to share on or off line.

A few years ago when my sister called me and told me my father had been rushed to a prestigious hospital in Atlanta with very little promise, I reverted to childhood—stopped eating, talking, walking, doing anything. Paul had to call the airline, book a ticket, pack my suitcase and coax me to get up and get ready to get on that flight.

And when my mother died, I didn’t make a public announcement and didn’t want public condolences and to be sure I didn’t get them, I said a quiet word to a friend or two and presto my wishes were respected. Honestly, I felt no judgements there nor have I dished them out on the flipside. For friends and family who are comfy with grieving publicly, there is nothing wrong with that. It’s a personal preference.

Still according to Nicola Morgan, guest on UIO: Your Online Wellbeing Inside Out, hearing sad stories repeatedly, which we do online, whether they are in the news, are our own, or in the newsfeeds of our friends, can drive us down a bit. As human beings, we naturally sympathise and empathise with each other and take on each other’s sorrows. I know I do. And when the going gets tough, my mood swings downward, which not only impacts me but also those around me. Ask Paul!

Taking a tip from Nicola, I try to manage my intake of sad news, which is not always possible if it is happening directly. In that case, like people whose job involves dealing with sad stories all the time, such as therapists, clinicians, people working in war zones, I might consider a talking therapy of some kind.

But where I can control how much sad news I take in, I make an effort, as I did in the days of old before the internet. Then it was the television and the newspapers. I switched off or didn’t read, as simple as that.  Of course, it made me a poor conversationalist at parties and so on but I was perhaps the happiest person there. Never mind being ignorant.

So whether you are happy to share sad news online or not or you tend to sponge it up, how to cope with it, manage it, applies to us all, young, old or in between. But as Nicola points out, sad news can have a bigger impact on the mood, emotional health of a more vulnerable person. And certainly when I was grieving the loss of my mom, I was in the vulnerable group and likely still am.

Anyhow, here are my top tips:

  • For every sad news story, read an uplifting one. And in the time of grief, remember the good times.
  • Offer private messages to friends and family when at all possible. There is something about a private moment that matters deeply. Recently I had the occasion to be there in person for some bereaved family friends that I grew up with and reconnecting offline did us all a world of good.
  • And if you do share your sad news stories, don’t spend oodles of time focusing on the negative, pluck out the positives where possible.
  • And finally, avoid checking to see who has responded and how many people have responded. It’s not a measure of how much people care. That’s personal.

But so is the preference for whether to mourn and grieve online or not. In any case, what matters most is that you protect your mental and emotional health. And that is truly personal. Take care!

 

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It’s A Start: Finding A Happy Medium

Lots of talk about how we are all spending too much time on social media, our smart devices and so on. Without a doubt, this talk has credence, but Nicola Morgan, guest on our latest podcast: Episode 12: Your Online Wellbeing Inside Out turns the talk on its head.

The point that she makes is that if we spend enough time doing the things that serve us both mentally and physically—sleeping, reading, daydreaming, checking out culture near and far and so on—then we would have less time to squander on social media, on our phones. And we just might find a happy medium and enjoy our devices without a slew of negative consequences.

Let’s face it we are obsessed. Talking from experience, however, obsessions can be managed. For some time now I have been signing off an hour and a half before bedtime, early on it was two hours, and am not only reaping the benefit of getting more sleep, I am also learning to draw again. But before I reclaimed that winding down time, there was no time for drawing or for anything else for that matter.

So far, I’ve produced a drawing of my husband that actually resembles him just a little. Next up is a self-portrait.  My father-in-law would be so proud, having left me to inherit any and everything drawing.

Well before he died, he did a handsome watercolour of each of the two properties we owned during his lifetime.  Six years later, we have owned two more. Sounds like a challenge to me? We’ll see if I am up for it. In the meantime, it is quite satisfying pursuing an activity that I rather enjoy.

Admittedly, signing off well before going to bed has not been easy. I still haven’t switched off the phone completely and stashed it in another room. Bear with; I am working on it. I have reached ‘do not disturb’ and ‘silent mode’ and hidden it in a corner.

In the meantime, I thought I’d bring the idea of ‘spending more time doing what serves us individually and collectively’ home literally. So, on Independence Day after observing smart phones draped around the room and how hugely significant they have become in one family, I thought I’d intervene ever so sneakily.  So, when someone would pick hers up or his for that matter at a ping or sometimes just because, I would find a way of reengaging them, pointing out that they were distracted. Such questions were asked: Are you a part of this conversation? Are you in the game or out? We’re eating now! Can you look at your phone later?

Of course, I shared Nicola’s top tips about device and online management: 1) Switch off and put out of sight 1.5 hours before bedtime, 2) Put away at mealtimes, even a coffee with a friend, 3) Ban during a conversation.

It’s a hard sell, one of my grown-up nieces admitted. “I’ll start with thirty minutes and work up to the ninety,’ she said, as her 12-year-old stepson giggled in the back ground in disbelief.

As for me, I think she is on to something. You have to start somewhere. The key is to start! I am so glad I did. Watch this space for that self-portrait. You never know—might even get to the latest two properties. The key is to focus on doing things that serve you both mentally and physically and less on how to kick the habit of things that don’t. And before you know, you just might find a happy medium.

Check out Episode 12: Your Online Wellbeing Inside Out with Nicola Morgan and also what she had to say about participating in the podcast. It’s a start.