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Social Media: Can my Post Hurt my Personal Injury Claim?
Tap, tap, swipe, tap. It’s not common to leave the house without seeing at least one person with their face glued to the screen. No matter where you go, it seems that someone is always scrolling, posting, filming, or liking a post on social media. In recent years, time spent on social media has grown exponentially.
According to a study by Mediakix, the average person will spend 5 years and 4 months of their lives on social media. That is predicted to be more time than people spend eating, drinking, socializing, and doing laundry throughout the course of their life combined! So, it may not come as a surprise if you find yourself posting daily on apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. If you post a photo on a social media medium you contribute to the 1.8 billion images posted daily on these platforms.
Social media not only entertains us, but it also connects us to our friends and family. Yet, as people are becoming more and more comfortable with posting on social media, they often forget that their posts may be available to more than just trusted social circles, and can have major repercussions.
How Can Social Media Hurt my Personal Injury Claim?
In the majority of personal injury cases, the injury victim may seek compensation from the at-fault party’s insurance company. Insurance companies don’t want to budge when it comes to handing over rightful compensation. Just as a personal injury lawyer at The Illinois Hammer Injury Law Firm would seek evidence to build a strong case so that you can obtain compensation, the insurance company will collect evidence to show that your injury or your suffering is not as severe as it truly is.
What is one of the insurance company’s go-to sources to prove you wrong? Social media. They can take a mundane post of you smiling with the caption “finally starting to feel better,” and suggest that you’ve recovered from an injury, even if the purpose of your post was to make your family and friends feel better.
Let’s look at another scenario. Perhaps your personal injury claim is demanding compensation for a wrist injury that you suffered in a car accident. Weeks later, you decide to post a video clip of yourself laughing and playing football with your friends. Even if you were using the wrist that was not injured to play, the insurance company could still attempt to argue that your injury is not severe and suggest that your dominant hand is fine, even if you’d made adjustments to play using your non-dominant hand. If the insurance company is successful in this argument, your personal injury claim could be dismissed.
4 Social Media Tips to Protect Your Personal Injury Claim
When it comes to protecting yourself and your personal injury claim, The Illinois Hammer recommends following these measures to prevent insurance companies from misusing your social media accounts as evidence against your personal injury claim:
- Limit posts: Make sure that you avoid posting about your injury online. If you do not post, insurance companies will not have posts to use against you.
- Limit what is posted of you: Tell your friends and family that any posts referencing you and your injury can be misconstrued, so do not post anything regarding it.
- Privacy settings: Adjust your privacy settings on all platforms to restrict any outside followers from seeing any of your information.
- Limit friends list: Do not accept friend requests or engage with people that you do not recognize.
Contact Us
The Illinois Hammer Injury Law Firm, Dworkin and Maciariello, has over 25 years of experience in personal injury law. If you have suffered from a personal injury and need to file a personal injury claim, please call us at 888-4-HAMMER for a free case evaluation.
