LinkedIn会不会扼杀童真

    他接着说：“以前有个好成绩，暑假找个暑期工就够了。但是要不了多久，孩子就会变得麻木不仁。你在哪实习过？你创建过什么学生俱乐部？你选择的是机器人学还是计算机科学？”

    所有这些都无异于是在推断：a.)青少年目前还没有这方面的压力，不用去思考这些事情；b.)LinkedIn不仅在强迫他们加入，而且还让他们的对个人资料进行筛选，然后将自己推向自己不感兴趣的职业。

    更有可能的是，世界上像亚历克斯•奇顿（80年代美剧Family Ties的主角，是一个有远大抱负的孩子——译注）这样的孩子会蜂拥加入LinkedIn，而像巴特•辛普森（没有什么追求的孩子——译注）这样的孩子和其他很多孩子都会对LinkedIn敬而远之。更有甚者，他们可能连LinkedIn这个名字都没听说过。我们可以据此推测，在LinkedIn创建账户的17岁青少年要比14岁青少年多。但是，一些14岁的孩子（例如像亚历克斯•奇顿这样的孩子）希望从现在就着手规划自己大学的职业生涯，我们为什么要阻止他们做呢？

    因为，康斯丁警告说：“问题并不在于青少年为了填满其LinkedIn个人资料而去做某些事，而是他们在选择做某件事之前，会首先以那些浏览网页的招聘者和大学招生办官员假想的眼光来审视自己。这会强迫他们依据他人的想法来做决定，而不是依据自己的爱好……”

    “这些想法可能会埋没下一个毕加索或奥巴马。”

    天哪，由此而得到的推论是，如果LinkedIn出现在上个世纪初的话，帕布罗•毕加索可能会选择做注会这一行。或者我们应该说，这看起来不大可能。然而，即便是可能的，难道还有比“1901-1904：蓝色时期”（毕加索在这个时期的作品中运用了大量的蓝色——译注）更好的LinkedIn个人介绍吗？很多艺术家和演员也在LinkedIn上填写个人资料，但这些人一直在追逐自己的梦想。

    我们可以肯定，如果LinkedIn在上个世纪70年代末就出现了的话，奥巴马总统会成为它的拥趸。他在哥伦比亚大学获得政治学和国际关系学位之前，在夏威夷参加了大学预科班。他的第一份工作是在商业国际公司（Business International Corp）上班，而这种工作听起来就像是剧集中亚历克斯•奇顿最终可能从事的工作。作为一名芝加哥社团组织者，奥巴马曾为贫困儿童设立了大学预科计划。然后他去了哈佛大学法学院。

    政治右翼势力经常将奥巴马担任社团组织者期间的所作所为描述为某种准马克思主义，一种对美国价值观的践踏，而且带有反建制情绪。但是，事实恰恰相反。在他的大部分时间中，他一直在为工作培训项目争取资金和政治支持，同时为贫困地区的儿童创造优势机遇。他希望这些孩子能在资本主义体制下获得成功。

    "It used to be enough to get good grades and a summer job," he continued. "Soon that could leave kids looking like slackers. Where are your internships? What student club did you start? Have you chosen between robotics and computer science?"

    All of this tacitly presumes that a.) teenagers aren't already pressured to think about these things, and b.) that LinkedIn is somehow forcing them to not only join but to tailor their profiles to push them toward careers they're not interested in.

    What seems more likely is that the Alex P. Keatons of the world are going to flock to LinkedIn, while the Bart Simpsons -- and many others -- will avoid it, if they ever even hear about it. Presumably, more 17-year-olds will create profiles than will 14-year-olds. But some 14-year-olds (the Alex P. Keatons) will want to get a jump on their college careers, so why not let them?

    Because, Constine warns: "The problem isn't teens doing things that could fill out their LinkedIn profile. It's them choosing what to try after judging themselves through the hypothetical eyes of recruiters and college admissions officers lurking the web. That could pressure them into making decisions based on what others want, rather than what excites them ...

    "These thoughts could derail the next Picasso or Obama."

    Oh, my. The presumption here is that if LinkedIn were around at the turn of the last century, Pablo Picasso might have opted for a career in chartered accountancy. That seems, shall we say, unlikely. But even if not, what would look better on a LinkedIn profile than "1901-1904: Blue Period?" There are lots of profiles on LinkedIn by artists and performers -- people who have followed their muse.

    And there's little doubt that President Obama (sort of Keatonesque himself but much less mercenary) would have been all over LinkedIn if it were available to him in the late 1970s. He attended a college prep school in Hawaii before getting degrees in poli sci and international relations at Columbia. His first job was at Business International Corp, which sounds like it could be a fictional company where Alex P. Keaton would have eventually landed. As a community organizer in Chicago, Obama managed college-prep programs for poor kids. Then he went to Harvard for law school.

    Obama's time as a community organizer is often portrayed by the political right as some kind of quasi-Marxist, anti-establishment assault on American values, but it was really just the opposite. He spent most of his time scrounging funds and political support for job-training programs, and helping kids in poor neighborhoods get a leg up. He wanted them to succeed in the capitalist system..