Digital Footprint

    Online Identity 

    Throughout my teenage years I spent most my days exploring the vast world of the internet. I would blindly sign up for websites and not use an alternative email address to do so. I received over 50 emails a day at the age of 15 and I quickly realized that this isnt going to work out. I decided to make a new email address for work and school to separate my emails from important to least important. At my age most kids would hop on the newest social media and type in all there information without thinking about the repercussions all that mattered was that you had an account and had followers. I had a short summer of being semi-famous when I was 14 on an app called gifboom. I gained around 10k followers and found myself on the "popular" page consistently. Through this attention I realized a lot about the internet and how permanent all my post were. The app got shutdown shortly after vine was introduced into the app store and still to this day I can find images of me on the app that I can never delete. The images arent harmful or offensive but I still feel uneasy about the permanence of my presence on the app that doesn't even exist anymore. Anyone can google themselves and find all there socials and pictures if they fit under the name you type in the query. Its important to not have that easy of identifiable information linked to your real name. If an employee were to google your name and find a inappropriate post than that could be the reason why you're fired or not an accepted applicant. 

    The online presence can be permanent if you do not take the right precautions in hiding your digital footprint. Recommendations include using alternative names when signing up for unknown websites and avoiding posting personal information that can easily be traced back to the poster. Making accounts private and being mindful of friend request can help limit who sees your content and most social medias let you choose how public you'd like to be with your post. Its important for parents to educate there children on creating accounts and be aware of the possible problems that can occur when oversharing. The digital footprint makes its first step once you create an account on a website. Almost anything can be searched in google and all it takes is 0.05 seconds for someone to know your name, email address, phone number, and full facial recognition. Its quiet the scary concept but it comes with the pros and cons of the internet. 

      Nowadays I find myself avoiding singing up for apps I dont need and making fake personas for accounts that I have. The only real information I use is when it comes to work or school. For entertainment its not necessary to use full names and emails that arent used for spam. Also using fake addresses helps with masking your identity. I feel that social media doesn't help with anything but instant gratification I hardly use it for any productive means. There was a time where social media made me feel more connected but now its just a false reality that people are trapped in and let it consume there daily life by staring into the void.