CRM-RMs: What Reputation Are You Building On The Internet?©

Recently I posted the following quotation on my FaceBook page.

If you want to be thought of as a solid, reliable pillar of your community when you’re 50, you can’t be an irresponsible, corner-cutting exploiter at 25. ... The time to worry about your reputation is before you have one. You determine your reputation by deciding who and what you are and by keeping that lofty vision of yourself in mind, even when you’re having a rip-roaring good time.(1)

It made me think about the kind of reputation many LDS youth and even some Returned Missionaries are making for themselves by their conduct on the Internet, especially on social media sites. Frankly, I have been dismayed by many things I have seen and I have wondered if you young people realize that the whole world can see what you write and do, what your attitudes and opinions are. And I’ve wondered if you may be unaware that you are building a reputation through this social interaction on the net.

Here is a pretty negative assessment of things I have encountered from LDS youth, a number of them returned missionaries from the CRM, on the Internet: many are childish, petulant, egocentric, and arrogant; use foul, vulgar language; possess “in your face” attitudes; espouse dubious, misdirected and not well-thought-out causes often inimical to the Church; play and promote Spirit-stifling music and games; pass along coarse, crude, and raw humor; exhibit poor priorities in their materialism, recreation, and social interactions; communicate poorly, using bad grammar, punctuation and writing; display inappropriate, often crude, images of themselves and others in unkempt, poor and/or immodest and worldly dress and grooming; frequently promulgate dubious and often erroneous theology and publicly disagree with and/or oppose teachings of LDS leaders; and in general show themselves to be opinionated, unsophisticated, pubescent, unrefined, ill-mannered, and uneducated. These things seem to be the common values of the modern youth culture.

All is ON THE INTERNET for all the world to see. And they show little awareness that all the world IS viewing their ignorance, immaturity, and coarseness. Unfortunately, that will not be without consequence to them--seen and unseen. It makes for a difficult job interview if they even get one, or to be considered seriously for important responsibility in society and the Church, or to be taken seriously by many people.  And ... I've wondered if they have given any consideration to what their parents, other relatives, respected friends, and church leaders might think about what they are saying and doing. Most importantly, has any consideration been given to the example this kind of behavior is setting for their own children when they are old enough to understand?

I recommend another reading of the above quotation and giving some thought as to how it may apply to one's conduct on Internet social sites.

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:  

1.  William Raspberry, in Bits & Pieces on Leadership, (September 2012), p. 1.  In 2011, the then U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, speaking at commencement of Boston College, said, " ... the vitriol of today’s public quarrels sometimes spills into our private lives–a reality that’s only aggravated in our hyper-connected, online world.
When you can tweet, or blog, or post to Facebook from a device that fits in your pocket, it’s easy to forget that your digital words can be far more callous and cutting than your verbal ones. People regularly type things on the Web that they would never say in person. In the process, they take technologies that hold enormous possibility for good and use them for ill. These are the same tools, mind you, that men and women around the world have used to topple dictators just in recent months."  Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of State, commencement address at Boston College, 23 May 1011, in Vital Speeches of the Day, 77, no. 8 (August 2011): 282.