Personal vs Professional

Social Networking vs. Professional Networking
New York Times article
Scholars do suggest, though, that the photographs people post on the sites are about more than showing what individuals look like. Rather, members carefully choose photos to display aspects of their personalities.
Keith N. Hampton, an assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said the notion of impressing “everyone out there” is the fundamental problem of networking sites. They are designed so that millions see the same image of a member.
For online impression management to be effective, Mr. Hampton said, the sites should be redesigned to allow people to reveal different aspects of their identity to different users. You should be able to present one face to your boss, and another to your poker buddies. “We have very real reasons for wanting to segment our social network,” he said.
But what of that breed of users who, despite all the warnings, could care less who sees what? They continue to post salacious photographs of themselves. They reveal deeply personal information. They inspire parental tsk-ing. They open themselves up to identity theft, hurt feelings and job loss.
And that may be the point.
“Today, posting revealing or culpable material online arguably has become another forum for signaling imperviousness to danger and repercussions,” Ms. Donath wrote in a paper published in October in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. “They may be indicating that their future is so secure that no social network site indiscretion would jeopardize it, or they may be showing their alienation from the sort of future where discretion is needed. For such users, the risk itself is the benefit.”