Paying to Update Online Profiles?

In the whirlwind of work that seems to be surrounding so many people these days, I have found myself trying to catch up and desperately in need of an assistant. As most of my needs involve work on a computer, I decided to look into hiring a virtual assistant.

After speaking with several, I found one who seemed promising, and I was fascinated when I found that her list of services included updating online profiles on MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn and any other online social networking sites.

Why would someone need another person to update their profiles? I asked her, and she said that people were to busy to keep up with several profiles and also that she would add elements to a profile that would make it look better for employers, for college admissions, and even to make someone look better to friends and co-workers. I really thought that was something else, but after thinking about it for a while, it made more sense to me.

My theory is that when someone goes online to update their networking site profile, it is very easy to get distracted, check another email, look at the cool apps and add-ons that are available, and pretty soon the task of adding new photos and updating a profile takes hours instead of minutes.

When you or I go online to check out our friends' profiles or to update our own, we likely spend more time finishing the task. There are so many things to do, interesting games and applications, and pictures and videos to watch that we can get caught up in the distractions and really waste a lot of time (more on internet time-wasting later). On the other hand, when someone we hire goes online to complete a task, it is not for entertainment. Finishing the task requires paying attention to the amount of time spent given that a client is paying usually by the task or the hour.

Someone paying to update my profile would be less likely to waste time than I would, simply because he or she is working on MY profile and would be less likely to have to check out all the updates and comments of my friends, to look at a video or two, and to find out the latest hit single that is on the charts. I shared this with the assistant I was interviewing, and she was delighted and said that she would try it with her own online profiles compared with updating profiles for others.

This makes sense to me, but I would love to hear from others about my ideas. Please feel free to leave any comments or to email me at drfred@drfred.net

Welcome!

There is a technology generation gap between parents and their children. As I look around online, talk to parents, teenagers, and younger kids (all who are spending time online) I notice more and more that parents often have a very different opinion and idea about internet safety than their children do. While one mom was asking me how to look at a video on YouTube, her son told me about the video he saw on YouTube about how to download free (and illegal) movies and videos. Dad has a hard time figuring out whether it is safe or not to pay his bills online while his daughters are sending instant messages, posting on FaceBook or MySpace, reading messages someone posted, and adding photos to their profiles.

The difference in comfort and use of technology between parents and children can often lead parents to become afraid or paranoid. Many a parent has approached me, terrified that their child or teenager will be abducted because he or she posted a home address or name on a profile. Others parents say they are afraid of what their children are doing online, but that they don't know how to do anything about it because they aren't so comfortable with technology.

My goal for this blog is to help parents understand and become more educated and comfortable with technology based communication and socialization, to help teenagers and children to make the right decisions regarding what they do online, and finally to highlight the real risks, concerns, and dangers of online social activity.

This is a beginning, and has come from the experience I have as a technology fiend and as a clinical psychologist. I have been fortunate to have begun speaking on the subjects of internet safety and online socializing to schools, parent groups, professional organizations, and with individual families. Please let me know your thoughts, ideas, or any questions you might have. I have created my psychology practice website (drfred.net) and am in the process of developing thecyberpsychologist.com, where I will be sharing information, guidelines, helpful resources, and links on internet safety and psychology.

Future topics will address safety rules for parents, the TRUE dangers of internet social connections, cyber bullying, tips for kids and teens, should parents snoop?, teen identity and the internet, and many other topics. I am very open to your suggestions as well!

This video from the Ad Council is one of many that makes a good point about how kids and teens say things online that they would not likely say in person, an example of the Online Disinhibition Effect.