A PSA From the Internet, To You

The internet has a message for you, college students, and it is this: today's hottest social media channels are weapons, and they can and will be used against you (#you). And when they are, writers of well-read blogs will chronicle it and preserve it for posterity. This includes Flyby.

This is a public service announcement, then, and it is in brief. If you are going to use the internet, use it wisely. There are many rules, and these are four:

1) Practice safe Snapchat.

Sure, a sloppy profile picture can make you lose your job. But Snapchat can make you lose your stuff (booze). With a lede we hope has been forever put to rest, The Cavalier Daily reports that a freshman at the University of Virginia (UVA) panicked on Monday when she received a Snapchat from a friend who was apparently at the University Police Station. When she asked her friend for deets, the friend responded that the University's Alcoholic Beverage Control was conducting dorm sweeps and had found beer in her room. She texted a few gal friends, they texted a few guy friends, and through "the power of social media," suddenly all the little freshmen were tossing their Bacardi in the bin and some enterprising fraternity brothers were doing a sweep of their own.

In response to the situation—and in a classic "that freshman" moment—Meredith Markwood, the Snapchatee, told The Cavalier Daily: "I thought, 'I can't have gotten this to the whole first-year class. I am one person. I don't even have 700 Facebook friends.'"

Takeaway: Don't Snapchat gullible friends, even if they only have 700 friends on Facebook.

2) Only buy used textbooks, because the new ones see you skimming.

Professors at Texas A&M are testing a series of digital textbooks that allow them to know when and how much students read, highlight, and take notes, according to The New York Times. "It's Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent," an administrator told The Times.

But while the idea of TFs actually knowing (and professors actually having time to know) how much you're reading is no doubt terrifying, it's not a trend to freak out about just yet. Chris Dede, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, was among the most skeptical academics referenced in the article. He is quoted as saying, "The possibilities of harm are tremendous if teachers are naïve enough to think these scores mean anything for the vast majority of students." If all goes well, we won't be seeing these textbooks here in Cambridge anytime soon.

Takeaway: When explaining an educational product to potential skeptics, try not to sell its merits through reference to the dictator of a totalitarian state in a postwar dystopian novel. If, in some dystopian future, you ever have to use one of these textbooks—well, best of luck.

3) Hashtag wisely.

Or people might think an alive person is dead. Seriously, this happened to Cher this week, although what happened to Margaret Thatcher this week didn't happen to Cher this week.

Takeaway: Hashtags aren't funny. Hashtag news is funny.

4) Practice peer pressure where necessary.

You are totally within your rights to force friends onto social media (with the exception of Vine). This recently happened to former President Bill Clinton, or should we say "@PrezBillyJeff." Contrary to our previous warning, if this should happen to you, don't worry about it being recorded for posterity. It's only important when it's done by an equally famous #celeb.

Takeaway: Why has no one done this for Tina Fey?