Imagine living in a world where one mistake on a social media account could cost you a scholarship to a university or bring the scrutiny of an entire nation to your doorstep.

For the nearly half a million student-athletes in the NCAA, such as the young men and women at Sacramento State, this is a reality that they all must come to terms with as soon as they walk through the door.

Athletes, such as junior Aaron Beverly of the men’s golf team, are addressed on the do’s and don’ts of social media every year by the Sac State media relations team.

“They tell us basically to try and keep all the drinking and partying out of your social media. Try to keep it professional,” Beverly said. “I think one person said, ‘Only post things that you’d want your grandma to see.’ I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.”

These guidelines may be easily understood, yet even professional athletes in 2016 are finding themselves in hot water for posting questionable Snapchat videos or sharing a controversial Facebook image, such as point guard D’Angelo Russell of the Los Angeles Lakers and former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Shilling.

Beverly, a psychology major, said these incidents wouldn’t be possible if more athletes put more thought into their social media presence.

“I think that some people need to just take the time to process and think about what they’re going to say or videotape or put out on social media,” Beverly said. “Obviously, in today’s world, everything is put under a microscope, especially for professional athletes.”

Fred Kelley, a former Sac State player and the football team’s current tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator, is one of the many people in sports who has made the transition from working under the microscope to working with it.

Kelley’s recruiting duties on social media may have not been as important 11 years ago, when only 12 percent of young adults ranging from 18 to 29 years old were using social media, but now that the Pew Research Center reports that 90 percent use it in 2015, it is crucial.

“It kind of started with the Facebook, but [recruits] don’t use that as much anymore. … Twitter is a great way to connect with them,” Kelley said. “You do see things that they’re saying and stuff like that, but in terms of being able to direct message them and do those types of things, you’re able to make contact with them a lot easier.”

This newfound interaction has also resulted in teenagers from all over the country losing athletic scholarship opportunities due to vulgar language and inappropriate tweets, but Kelley believes that student-athletes entering the recruiting process have wised up of late.

“I do think the kids are a little conscience, and they know that they’re being followed or being looked at because they see you when you pop up and stuff like that,” Kelley said. “I think more and more as it goes, they’re being coached up what to put on there as well. I don’t see too much stuff that’s really just turned me off or made it an absolute no.”

One such recruit that is all too familiar with the process is Sac State football and track signee Andre Lindsey, who inked his scholarship papers on April 4, as he has embraced social media in his life but understands it can be a double-edged sword.

“There’s a lot of positive things on there that I look at and I get insight from. There’s also a lot of negativity on there that shouldn’t be on there, but you know, it’s life,” Lindsey said. “It hurts a lot of people, because they say and probably tweet too much stuff, and it hurts their recruiting process because a lot of coaches can take scholarships away.”

Kelley noted that he hasn’t had to talk to a Sac State player once in his five seasons with the program about an inappropriate social media post, but nonetheless, incidents occur all over the nation, such as Joey Casselberry of Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania.

Casselberry, a former baseball player for BU, went to Twitter on March 20, 2015 to call Little League World Series pitcher Mo’ne Davis a derogatory term and was kicked off the team one day later.

So how do Sac State student-athletes avoid social media mishaps and keep things in perspective? For Beverly, a self-described “huge supporter of social media,” the process is as simple as just focusing on what’s important.

“I’m a very goal-driven person. Goals for school–I like to have a 4.0, so I have to make sure I get school done first,” Beverly said. “Second is golf, and we want to win the Big Sky, so I’ll focus a lot more on golf than I will on my phone or anything that’s happening.”