Deleted Doesn’t Always Mean Deleted!?

Think about the first time you really started applying for a “grown-up” job.  You bought some new professional clothes, you hammered out an amazing resume, and you cleaned up your Facebook.  Or did you?

A recent study done by Cambridge University shows that even if you delete some photos from your Facebook, they may still exist in some other dusty corner of the internet.  The explanation is that Facebook is such a large site that it divides its content into different servers and your pictures are on one of those servers.  That makes it difficult to actually find your pictures and delete them after you press the button.

Although Facebook’s official position is that pictures are removed immediately when you delete them, it’s hard not to be worried about the “time lag” between pressing that button and never seeing myself in a wet tee shirt contest, shaking it in Cancun again (yes, it happened and yes, the pictures have already been deleted…I hope).

What does this mean for the Facebook generation?

Our entire lives are recorded online, picture to picture, status message to status message.  There are some things that, at the time, seem completely hilarious and appropriate to post.  When we’re just thinking about the reactions we’ll get from our friends, that is.  When we have to start thinking about reactions from our boss and our future bosses, things get a little hairy.

Let’s try a little Facebook intelligence – think about all the possible consequences of a picture before you put it online for everyone to see (oh, everyone can see them if they’re crafty enough), because apparently deleting doesn’t necessarily mean the picture is removed (at least immediately).  We’ve known practically since we’ve started using computers that we shouldn’t put up anything on the internet that we wouldn’t want our grandmother to see.  Maybe in light of this (rather unsettling) discovery, it’s about time to start taking that advice.

Goodbye, Spring Break ‘05 pictures – Hello, Awesome Future Job!