You might have heard of “Vodka Samm”. She was a student at the University of Iowa who was extremely intoxicated, taken to jail, and then live tweeted from her phone about her experience. Her story quickly went viral, and as we teach our kids about the perils of their “digital footprint”, you can see in the screenshot below the Google search of Samantha Goudie:
Not the most flattering “footprint”, and by any accounts, she might struggle getting a job if any employer was to Google her.
But before we judge too harshly, check out part of this video that is on the first page of results when you google her name.
Does she seem like a really horrible person or just someone that made a mistake in university? Does this one action posted online determine her character for the rest of her life?
t is very easy to become judgmental as a society and jump on people when they screw up, but honestly, did you ever drink too much or do something that you regretted? I know that I am guilty of making many mistakes in my life, and perhaps I was just lucky that social media did not exist when I was in high school or post-secondary. We teach a lot about “Digital Footprint” but do we teach our kids and ourselves enough about empathy?
I think there has to be a balance of teaching our kids the perils of posting inappropriate things online and the impact it could have on their lives, while also having an empathy for one another and realizing that we are all human meaning fundamentally, we are all flawed.
