Digital Footprint

Reflection of my Digital Footprint revealed by Google

After searching up my name on Google I found that nothing about me that identified me by name could be found within the first few pages, but rather of a passed criminal defense lawyer who lived in Ontario. I have almost complete anonymity when you search me up with a search engine. However, searching up some aliases that I use on some social media sites shows links to account information pages about me (not by name) on websites like Codecademy, OpenProcessing, and YouTube. This anonymity online could be an advantage to me because a potential employer will not be able to find negative attributes about me, or a disadvantage because they can’t find any good attributes about me either.

There is a List of 5 Attributes of a Positive Digital Footprint, all Named with a First Letter “C”:

Contributes to the Online Community
Control of Identity
Cautious Sharing of Information
Constructive Commenting
Curated Online Presence

Below are ways that my Digital Footprint can Apply to these Attributes

My digital footprint can contribute to the online community through any public form of sharing information. This Edublog post is a form of such.

I can control my identity by being able to control where my name appears in certain places. Control of my name on this website is limited because it is a site supported by this school, and most settings are controlled by an administrator. However, I can control what informational content appears on my Edublog. On another site like Instagram, I could control privacy settings on an account and control who can see content on that account. Along with this I also try to make my presence online anonymous, with whatever is at my disposal, being aliases that can’t be tracked to me, use of software that improves my privacy online, and more means of an anonymous presence.

I also attempt to take part in cautious information sharing, by controlling who can see information, and what information they can see.

My digital footprint does not necessarily consist of constructive commenting as I have not found many, if any opportunities to provide a constructive comment.

Considering I have often chosen (in most cases) how my presence online exists, I would say that I do have a curated online presence. Whether it is a well curated presence or not I wouldn’t really know, but I do believe that having an anonymous one, like my presence outside of this website, would make my presence positively curated.

My existing digital footprint could affect future opportunities like these:

Future Education
Post-Secondary School Applications
Job & Career Prospects
Family & Friends

Below are ways my existing Digital Footprint could Affect Future Opportunities for me

My digital footprint could affect my future education by showing how interested I am within a certain subject and potentially varying the likelihood of me being accepted into a course.

My digital footprint could affect any application that I turn in for post secondary education by again, showing interest in the courses offered by the institution. Also, if someone reviewing my application researches me and finds me to be someone that could improve their reputation, I may find that my chances of getting into such an institution increase. Vice-versa, if I were found to be someone who could tarnish an institution’s reputation my chances of getting into it will decrease.

A job opportunity provided to me could also be affected in ways mentioned above.

My digital footprint could affect potential friends and family with how one would research me. If a potential friend were to research me and find that I could help them succeed in life somehow, they may wish to befriend me, and if I were found to possibly damage how people view them, they might start avoiding me. The same goes for a potential addition to my family, of which how one would show up I could not tell.

Questions and Responses

There is some missing context for the video below…
People tend to take pictures of anything they find interesting, funny, or weird. For example, Person A has quick access to a camera with their smartphone, and they can easily take a picture or video of Person B taking part in an activity that may tarnish Person B’s digital footprint. Person A takes this video and posts it online so it does tarnish Person B’s digital footprint.