Professionalism in the Digital Age

Where does work-life end and social life begin? 

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The long-fought battle of guidelines for appropriate social media use between companies and their employees hit the New York Times and Wall Street Journal in 2017. As we begin to venture into the powers of social media more, companies are wary of the image their employees can put out that may represent the organization as a whole. However, many employees argue that this can feel like censorship or work bleeding into social life where it doesn't belong. In late 2019, a study published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery aimed at younger surgeons' social media usage. Now redacted, the study titled Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons caused outrage in the medical community. The study mainly focused on women posting photos in bikinis and how this could be seen as unprofessional. Women, understandably, were outraged by this study and coined the hashtag #MedBikini to encourage other women in medicine to post their bikini pictures proving their online presence did not affect their ability to do their job. In their redaction statement, the journal stated, "The methodology was in part predicated on highly subjective assessments of professionalism based on antiquated norms and predominantly male authorship supervised the assessments made by junior, male students, and trainees. The authors did not identify biases in the methodology, i.e., judging public social media posts of women wearing bikinis on off-hours as "potentially unprofessional." 

While it wasn't a specific workplace planning to censor the social media presence of their employees, this movement has sparked discussions about whether or not work-life should be entirely removed from social life. After working for many hours during the week, employees believe they should shed their office brain for a more accessible online experience.

 

Companies have absolute discretion when dealing with controversial or harmful comments made by their employees. However, when opinions are cast on politicians or policies, journalists should not have to fear for their job when criticizing. It is also essential to know what our journalists think under their umbrella. Opinion pieces can only allow journalists so much freedom. Many things are censored for the news sites' sake; however, journalists have personal feelings they should rattle off somewhere. By imposing on their social media presence, news outlets then put the burden of the workday onto their journalists day and night. They are constantly on the clock regarding how to think, act, and post. There must be a line drawn when it comes to removing opinions for journalists online at home.