Ring Vigilantes & TikTok CVs
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #174 ❤️
You’ve heard of first world problems, well this week we’re bringing you modern world problems. From the ring camera, which may or may not be a menace to society, to our most scammed generation.
TikTok even has it’s own subset of problems – their self-centred CV function and TikTok Shop encroaching on users viewing pleasure.
Plus, can the segmentation method make you happier at work?
Let's get into it.
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#1 - Taking Your CV To TikTok
We all know by now that Gen Z are reshaping the working world, but really, are TikTok CVs going to be a thing?
Work culture and job-search site Welcome To The Jungle sing the praises of the TikTok resume as a way to create “innovative, visually engaging, and succinct video resumes” that showcase the “skills, personality, and creativity” of the creator, and some of the pros they asked agreed.
Personal branding consultant Melanie Denny thinks the short format of TikTok resumes is great from a personal branding perspective, as it forces you to get straight to the point of what you want to convey about yourself, and allows you to show your personality through body language and the way you speak.
She also notes that she’d be impressed by a TikTok resume if someone sent her one, as it shows a knowledge of TikTok, and thus marketing. As TikTok is simply a social media platform for young people, and not a marketing school, we’d refute this – but it is a mistake hiring manager who didn’t grow up with social media often make.
Just because a Gen Zer knows how to use a social network they literally grew up using, which is also used in marketing, doesn’t mean there is any correlation between the two - It’s a bit like thinking someone knows how to code because they have a computer. But we digress.
The more traditional eye, as expected, isn’t as keen on the TikTok resume. Founder of executive resume-writing and job-landing consultancy firm Chameleon Resumes is sceptical, judging that “Creativity without purpose is not useful” and that recruiters prefer simple CVs.
She even advises against a paper resume that is too graphic, as it’s more difficult for the human eye to focus on. If that’s the case, then recruiters probably don’t want to have to take the time to watch a video, take notes, and then compare with others.
Basically, when you’re applying for a job – you’re not the main character. Something that the TikTok generation may find hard to shake.
#2 - Gen Z More Likely To Get Scammed Than Their Gran
Zoomers may have more in common with boomers than we thought, as half of them have been the victim of an online scam. According to a recent Deloitte survey, Gen Z actually fall for online scams and get hacked far for frequently than their grandparents.
They’re three times more likely to get caught up in an online scam, twice as likely to have their social media account hacked, and more of them have had their location information “misused” than any other generation.
And getting scammed isn’t cheap. In 2017, online scam victims under 20 lost an estimated 8.2 million dollars, but in 2022 those numbers went through the roof, with victims losing 210 million dollars.
So what’s changed? There are a few theories.
Firstly, they simply use technology more often than any other generation, and are hence more likely to be scammed there. For example, they’re more comfortable meeting people online, so are more likely to fall for a romance scam.
Secondly, growing up on the internet has given Gen Z a familiarity with their devices than can sometimes incentivize them to choose convenience over safety. Apps like Instagram and TikTok are convenient by design – you install the app and stay logged in, so you can post or browse instantaneously.
Sure, if Instagram made you log-in every time you opened the app, it would probably be more secure. But the generation of users who’ve never had to wait for anything to load would move on to something else.
Thirdly, cybersecurity education for school-aged children just doesn’t really click with their lived experiences online. Probably because the people coming up with the curriculum and teaching it don’t have the same lived experience as them. Gen Z are the only generation that have always had online lives alongside their “real” lives, and for them it often takes up as much, if not more space.
It's been suggested that the impetus for online security shouldn’t only fall on the user, but that security settings should be stronger, and easier to access and understand. However, while convenience remains king, companies may not be incentivised to get involved, and Gen Z might be learning how to avoid scams the hard way.
#3 - Should You Really Have A Ring Camera?
Ring cameras are in the celeb news this week, as Joe Jonas (from the Jonas Brothers) and Sophie Turner (Sansa from GOT) are getting divorced, and apparently the last straw was, drumroll… something he heard her saying on the ring camera.
The next step in the saga? Well, people are probably waiting for the footage to get leaked because yes, that’s a thing that happens.
A Conservative US politician has been in hot water this year after a video of him berating his pregnant wife, filmed on the ring camera in their garden, was leaked online, and this past week a fan published footage from their ring doorbell of rapper Lil Meech (us neither) entering an apartment with a woman, apparently cheating on his girlfriend. He maintains he was helping his cousin take her shopping in, but that’s beside the point.
Wired published an article this summer in their product testing section in which they actually came to the conclusion that the ring camera fell into the category of the rare products that they wil not recommend, as they deem them to be “dangerous to you, or society in general”.
This is mostly due to their relationship with law enforcement in the US, which centres around the “Neighbors” function (US spelling included) – their free neighbourhood watch feature which alerts you to crime and safety event up to a 5-mile radius around your house.
Wired expressed concern over the possibility that it could lead customers to become vigilantes, increase racial profiling and be a danger to public privacy.
While this feature isn’t available in the UK, and due to UK privacy laws your neighbour could actually sue you if your ring camera looks onto their land, we’d still double check if there’s one nearby if you’re planning on cheating on your spouse, or helping your cousin bring their shopping in…
#4 - TikTok Shop – Too Much Shop Not Enough TikTok?
We’ve all heard that TikTok are moving into the shopping sphere, and by all accounts, killing it. But are they also killing TikTok in the process?
The TikTok Shop feels like a mix of Amazon and Wish, and if some of the product seem scammy, they shouldn’t be, as third party sellers are required to meet certain criteria (in theory).
The Shop is housed one click along from the For You page, where TikTok hold their famously tailored to you videos for you to scroll through for hours at a time.
One user, who had previously curated her For You Page to show her exactly what she wanted, in this case a very niche mix of queer and mental health content along with clips from Taskmaster New Zealand, has noticed a difference in the content she’s being shown since the Shop opened.
When she left the shop and reopened her For You Page, six of the first ten videos she were shown were ads, and most of them of products she’d already clicked on the shop, and every time she logged on her feed was peppered with videos selling products from the Shop.
She described her feed as resembling a scrolling advert, that throws in a meme every so often to keep her interested. So, Instagram then?
While up until now the For You Page had managed to feel like sorcery by showing you exactly what you wanted to see, down to the most specific part of your interests, the ads feel like an interruption.
If they change the very thing that made TikTok unique, will it change the way users feel about it, and will they finally be able to put it down, just as TikTok need them to stay on?
#5 - Introducing Segmentation
Segmentation is a way of organising the working day based on how much you like doing a task, and according to Cassie Holmes, the author of a book called Happier Hour, segmentation can make you happier at work.
The idea is you prioritize the tasks you do like to counteract those you don’t, and by splitting your day up into segments you will apparently feel happier at work.
Firstly, to do the segmentation technique you need to identify which tasks “contribute to your growth” by examining your work habits. Asking yourself, for example, why does this work need to be done? Why does it matter to me?
Then you identify the tasks that are in line with your goals and come up with a schedule that separates each activity, enjoyable or not, into a daily schedule.
We can see why this may work. While the act of setting up a schedule for the day and blocking time for each activity (something which already exists in the “pomedoro” and “chunking” work methods) can give you a sense of control over your day, the act of examining what each task means to do you adds something to it.
Even when using a scheduling method, something you dislike doing might always get pushed to back of the list, and hence never finished.
If you know you’re going to spend two hours of your day creating a client deck, something you usually enjoy, you’ll feel less put out that you’ll be spending the first twenty minutes of your day invoicing – something you know you don’t like, and hence put off.
To top it off, really thinking about why you do some of the work you do may go some way to bringing meaning to the work you don’t usually take pleasure in, and therefore making it that little bit more bearable through being meaningful.
And of course, it’s always nice to tick something off your to-do list, right?
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
Who’s The Captain Here?
Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of “X” (apparently) recently made an appearance at Vox’s Code Conference, seeming to know nothing about the company that she’s been at the helm of since June.
When asked, she denied that she was a CEO in name only, with Musk really running the show.
Her response “who wouldn’t want Musk by their side?” got a laugh from the crowd. It wasn’t meant to…
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