Bill Bergman, a marketing instructor at the University of Richmond's B-school, notes an interesting trend in a recent commentary in MediaPost's Agency Daily. He says college students he's teaching seem to be afraid to speak out in class for fear of being embarrassed by classmates who might call them out via social media. So they keep their hands down in class and their mouths shut.
These are kids, he says, who have grown up seeing the impact of a mistake or bad judgment on social media. They've seen firsthand that once something is online it can haunt you forever, possibly impacting one's ability to land a job or get into grad school.
So rather than get called out via a tweet, they seem to keep their opinions to themselves, Bergman believes. He thinks, from what he sees in his students, that by the time they reach their senior year in college, they hit a social media saturation point. It's not that social media has lost its importance to them, but rather they're getting caught up with other priorities and pressures that demand their attention -- studies and the upcoming hunt for the next step in their lives, finding a job or continuing thier education.
Bergman notes recent grads seem to be less involved with social media than current students. The explanation, he writes, may be "a boss, a cubicle and a 10 p.m. bedtime help diminish the social media habit." And they realize, as they mature, that it's more important to protect your real personality than to build "a contrived popularity" through silly or controversial tweets and potentially awkward photos posted on Instagram.
After college, he writes, young adults "begin to recognize that college is really created for the young - and so too is the extensive use of social media platforms."
It's called growing up and becoming responsible.