Social media is one of the dominant forces in 21st-century communication, and it is going nowhere. Even if it dwindles in popularity over the years, the things written and shared on social media can be dug up by anyone who takes interest. Someday, your grandchildren will be able to view your Tweets and ask you questions that you probably will not want to answer.

Each month, about 300 million people use Instagram and Twitter. Snapchat brings in about 100 million users daily. Instagram allows users to post photos of their own and comment on the photos of others. Twitter helps compress shallow banter between friends into 140 characters or less. Snapchat is like a “temporary” Instagram in that it allows users to send photos that last 10 seconds or less to their friends. After that, the photos are most likely stored by Snapchat in some kind of database.

It seems like every week a sports star, celebrity, musician, CEO, comedian or news anchor gets in hot water over something they said on Twitter. People get angry and then forget about it almost instantly. While we may like to sit back and laugh at their screw-ups, many teens seem to forget that the things they say and show on social media have repercussions as well.

But should students be punished for what they say on Twitter or show on Instagram? If so, is it the school’s responsibility to take action? What does a student need to do on social media in order to be punished? 

I talked with Mr. Joe Henning, teacher and co-director of students at Trinity High School, about teens using social media and the school’s role in deciding when to punish students for what they do on it.

“There is at least one incident of (a student getting in trouble over social media) a year. We honestly don’t have a lot of incidents of it — doesn’t mean it’s not happening, but we don’t go looking for it. It usually is brought to our attention by someone else,” Henning said.

These notices come from students, parents or even an anonymous source. “Sometimes it is because somebody is concerned for a student’s well-being (based on what they’ve seen) online,” Henning said.

Once an issue is brought forward, an administrator talks to the student.

“Some things are easily explainable. It’s often easy to take things that are posted online or on a social media account or a text message out of context, so if we can get an explanation of context of posting, that can help,” Henning said. “Sometimes it is something that we find to be harmful to the student or to the reputation of the school, and we’ll contact the parents of the student. We’ll ask the student or ask the parents to have the student take down the posting from their social media account.”

But deleting a post doesn’t necessarily mean that it is wiped off the face of the earth. Henning said, “It can come back to haunt you when you’re applying for a job or a scholarship.”

According to Henning, the punishment for inappropriate social media use depends on the situation. If the post involves cyberbullying, then a student may end up with a demerit or a Saturday JUG (detention). Posts depicting or mentioning drug use by a student can end up in an assessment, a drug test, and other disciplinary consequences. In short, if a posting violates the school’s Code of Conduct, then you are at risk for being called in.

If a student alludes to self-harm, then the school won’t punish a student but will talk with him and try to help the situation.

It is a school’s responsibility to ensure that students are safe, and measures must be taken to carry this out. If a student makes a post that could be seen as a legitimate threat to the school or another student or himself, then action should definitely be taken.

The only issue I see with the school’s policy is something that they can’t control: the amount that flies under the radar. Henning said the school does not have the time to monitor 1,300 students’ social media accounts, so the responsibility lies in the hands of students and parents who see inappropriate posts.

Even if very little of what is said on social media is meant to be taken seriously, there is always the chance that someone will take a post out of context and twist it into something entirely different. People on the Internet adhere to the idea of “guilty until proven innocent,” and the pitchfork is pierced in your chest before you even have the chance to explain yourself.

Though Trinity may not catch everything you post online, it is still smart to think before posting. Like it or not, everything we post on social media will be stored somewhere. It’s permanent, and the best that we can hope for is that our posts get lost in a digital landfill with the 300 million other accounts.