Important lessons to be learnt by generation Z

Important lessons to be learnt by generation Z

As Love Island star Georgia Harrison politely noted on Monday night, Twitter was extremely quiet, perhaps due to the amount of public stars checking their twitter feeds for potentially offensive language and derogatory words. Following the backlash from Jack Maynard being thrown out of the Jungle with little acknowledgement of this from TV favorites Ant and Dec, apart from briefly stating that Jack had to leave for personal reasons.

Twitter controversy

It recently came to light that in fact Jack had been asked to leave the show due to inappropriate tweets written when the YouTube star was in his teens. YouTube is the fastest growing social media platform in the UK industry with over half of generation Z’s population using the site before buying anything. YouTube ‘Vloggers’ are every day people that find fame online through reviewing products or coming up with tutorials or just videoing their daily life.

With this increase in popularity, more and more younger people are becoming famous before being able to grow-up, which in Jacks case has been extremely damaging for his future career.

Another star who recently got called out for the terminology he used to use, was grime star Stormzy, with public access to the things that our favorite stars have ever said, such as an archive on all the vocabulary they used to say and tweet there is no escaping the power of social media. Social media generally is an extremely positive thing, however, as of late it has been used to conduct witch-hunts. With public access people can be easily called out for things they may have said and done in the past, which is not a direct representation of the person they are now. By documenting our lives and accomplishments in this way it becomes very easy for an individual to be called out.

We need to educate our children and the youth of today about social media and highlight the importance that the Internet can be forever. Even though some employers would never admit it, they still will search your social media before you arrive at the interview, and even if your profile is on private (just like mine was), your best friends profile isn’t and therefore everybody that comes on your profile will be able to see that you uploaded a photo of her in a club in a toilet back in 2011. Luckily my employers weren’t put off by this, however lots of employers would be. And wont be associated with people who have made past mistakes, due to the representation you reflect on the companies brand.

Personal brand

Be mindful of who can see or can read what you’re posting. Just like a business you have a brand and you won’t be able to sell yourself, if people find out you used to be something else.

For teachers, staying invisible on social media is very important to keep your personal life personal and most succeed at this with no problems at all. However, social media is one of the biggest influencers in our children’s lives and we need to educate them with the story of Jack and other social media influencers who end up in hot water, so they don’t make the same mistakes.