Work vs Personal Profiles

My office hosted an orientation last week for about 100 students who are going abroad in the fall. It was an event run by my office and mirrored the typical orientation that students go through, with informational sessions throughout the day followed by evening teambuilding activities and a night in one of the campus residence halls.

I worked closely with the group of students who will be studying in London. I led several sessions regarding their future academics, living, and cultural activities. Most of these sessions also included their parents.

After spending two full days interacting with these students and parents, many of them sent me friend requests on Facebook. I'm not entirely sure how they found me on there, as I use my first and middle name on my personal profile in order to avoid such happenings. Regardless, I try to keep my work and personal lives separate to an extent on social media. I'm friends with my colleagues on my personal page, as I'm also friends with them in real life, but for students/parents, I have a work profile (essentially to avoid the growing pains of context collapse [and also to contain the helicopter parents to just one area of my life]).

This put me in a bit of a pickle, as I some of the folks who added me mentioned the fact in person that I should accept their request. I thought it might be awkward to explain about separate profiles without looking like I was hiding some weird personal secrets on my personal page. I brushed the conversation off for those who did mention requesting me, but I wonder if in the future I should make it more known right off the bat that I have a work profile they can request me on should they have future questions/need to get in touch. At least that sets the precedent up of where they should send a friend request should they so wish.

Do any of you have separate profiles/pages for work versus personal? Have you ever experience your own context collapse this way?

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 26, 2017 at 11:56 AM

    Hi Alexis,
    I, too, have issues with context collapse. One of my early blogs was on just that:). I began working at my institution in 2005, and decided at that point to set up my personal social media with a pseudonym.... specifically to avoid students finding me and requesting friendship. I'm sorry you're having to deal with that.

    If you already have a social media account set up for your professional persona, and don't mind the potential inundation the semesterly rotation might bring, I would recommend you be proactive and share that profile during the orientation! Give them the account you wish them to engage with you!

    Best of luck:)

    ReplyDelete

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