Weekly Reflection

This week, I considered social media as it relates to activism and assessment. I think I inadvertently touched on activism in last week’s post on the perils of using social media to call out toxic managers. I was glad to be able to read more about online activism. Social media seems well suited for “getting the word out” and, therefore, well suited for activism. Still, careful consideration shows that there are some significant risks associated with it. Social media tends to be an echo chamber of ideas rather than a melting pot. So, it may be more challenging to enact real change using online activism than the optimist would hope.

The other topic of the week, assessment, was also enlightening. I was particularly drawn to the article about using social media to select job candidates. Although using someone’s Facebook profile to rate their suitability for a job may be tempting, the research shows that this isn’t a valid predictor of job performance. In fact, using social media in this manner may perpetuate harmful biases against marginalized groups.

Overall, both of these topics were quite interesting to me. I learned a lot from the readings and hope to learn more through continued reading on the issues.