How are we to reconcile these two supposed facts from the explosively candid world of online social networking? British businesses lose an estimated £6.5 billion a year in time lost by employees logging on to Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and their rivals instead of working. Meanwhile, as we report today, a fifth of employers regularly vet current and potential recruits by trawling the same sites for indiscretions.
The human mania for disclosure clearly has benefits as well as costs. If Smith in sales tells his Facebook friends he’s quitting, and Harriett in HR happens to be one of them, she would be remiss if she didn’t start looking for someone to replace him. In the same way, supposing the flamboyant son of a Tory MP were to let slip online that he was a full-time student at Newcastle University while being paid out of his father’s allowances for no apparent work, Joe Taxpayer would be derelict in his duty if he did not question the son’s suitability for future employment or call for the father’s head.
This sort of snooping is legal. But it carries the upsetting risk of mass self-censorship in the one arena where ordinary people, unlike reality TV freaks, had begun to feel comfortable wearing their hearts on their electronic sleeves. A message, therefore, to employers: all may be fair in love and recruitment, but take the trouble to meet the real person. And to job-hunters: post nothing online that potential employers could use to embarrass you. Facebook them instead. In this website’s parlance, a “poke” is a nudge. Well, a poke is just a poke. A pry is just a pry. The fundamental things apply. Log on and spy.