Teens and Social Media: Some Warnings To Heed

By Rebecca Mancini and Briana Linehan In the moment, teens usually don’t think about the possible repercussions of inappropriate social media posts. Assistant Principal Joseph Briganti said that the administration is kept up to date with these kinds of posts because, “the entire community of Branford has access to the internet. Things get to us. Anonymous people call or even leave notes.” Here at BHS there have been many cases of incriminating social media posts being found by administration. For example, last year a student, who requested to remain anonymous, who was elected into a leadership role had her position revoked by administration because of a tweet, that referenced legalizing marijuana at BHS, that they had posted a few weeks previous. She explained her thoughts on the situation saying, “Not everyone is receptive to humor and can interpret posts differently from the author’s intentions… I always felt that I was sharing my thoughts with my friends, my followers. It became evident that my account was closely monitored by others after the results of the election were tallied up. I was immediately placed in the hot seat in Mr Panagoulias’ room with the vice principal and the two advisors. I had never met him before, and it was unfortunate that now I was being charged with launching a campaign that violated school values. What was a simple joke was blown so far out of proportion. After sacrificing the position on the board of class officers, I erased myself from all social networking, and deleted all my accounts. I felt better knowing I had taken myself out of the world of social networking.” A lot of school’s sports teams use twitter keep up with their players. In an article from the Democrat & Chronicle, located in Rochester NY, discussing the relationship between Twitter and school athletes, it said that, “More schools are using Twitter to give their athletes recognition, in-game updates or final scores… Teens complaining about playing time, bickering with a teammate or trash-talking an opponent have forced coaches to be more vigilant about their players’ online activity.” While getting in trouble with your high school may not be a big deal to some people, social media posts can even get you into legal trouble. Recently, a girl, who will remain anonymous, tweeted, “I wanna blow up verizon,” thinking that because she didn’t mean this threat seriously, that it didn’t matter. She explained what happened a few days following this tweet, “my mom showed up to where I was without warning, I was out with a few friends, and when we got home she explained to me what was going on. She then had to call the police officer who had stopped by earlier to come and talk to me and he threatened me with community service because I guess it was a, ‘breach of peace,’ but I never got in serious trouble.” What do you think? Do students at BHS use social media in a responsible way? Is this an issue at the school? Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @Branfordbuzz.