My Digital Footprint

Week 3

The best description I've found about digital footprints is comparing them to tattoos. Once they are impressed into the online world, they are nearly impossible to erase. Even if you can manage to "erase" the footprint, just like a tattoo, it will always leave a mark behind. But knowing this, it is your job to determine what that footprint will look like. The websites you join, the pictures you post, and the comments you make all point fingers right back in your direction. Online users must be aware of their posts and the impact it could make on their footprint in the long run. You cannot control the fact that your digital footprints are made each time you type on your keyboard in an online capacity, but again, you can control what it is you are adding to your footprint. 

When I Google search my name, the first thing that pops up is all the images I have allowed to be used as profile pictures or have been published of me. The first seven images are actually of me. Five of the images are profile pictures for Google or LinkedIn and other public sites. One image is the picture from my school's website and one image is a school-related article published in an online newspaper. There are no videos connected to my name.

On the Google web tab, the first page consists of all the public sites I am linked to. The first two are the links to my school's webpage and faculty list. The next couple are from social sites like The Knot and LinkedIn. One of the links on the first page actually connects right back to this very blog. Some of the links go back to articles published about my for community service or volleyball stats in college all the way back to published track meet results from high school. 

To search even further, I decided to look back into the posts I've made on Facebook, my longest running social networking site of ten years this month. Back when Facebook only existed for people with college email addresses, mine was born. Over the years all of my pictures and posts have been positive. There isn't any alcohol or embarrassing pictures on Facebook, as I don't let those get taken. Most of the posts I make now are about my upcoming wedding, but before that, for the last 5 years, a majority of posts are made about my beautiful pit bull and breaking stereotypes about Breed Specific Legislation. I very rarely post about work and have never posted pictures of my students' faces. I know how my footprint looks, but I don't want to be the person who impacts someone else's footprint in a negative way.