ATHENS — An employment lawyer is telling University of Georgia law students that social media is a double edged sword.

He says it can either help you or hurt you, especially when applying for jobs or trying to keep a job you already have. 

Doug Towns spoke to students from the labor and employment law association Monday afternoon about the dangers of social media in the workplace.

He lectures to different schools about the issues. Towns showed the class examples of pictures not to post on social media.

He says something inappropriate can spread on the web quickly.

“You have to be careful,” he said. “You don’t want pictures from a party on the Internet the next day or in one year or in five. But it will be there.”

 His advice to students trying to find a job is to just be careful of what you put out there. He says anything online is like something that could show up on a resume.