As we become more public with our lives, posting pictures and information about ourselves and our family on social media (and being posted about, whether we give permission or not), we need to reflect on what our growing digital portrait looks like to outsiders as well as loved ones. Do we consider how, when hitting send or post, what we post today will affect us over time?
Here's one quick way to check if you are creating a digital footprint that you can live with. Ask yourself: If my future child (or partner or whoever is important to you) were to Google me, what would he or she see, and what would he or she think? If a prospective employer did the same, which is more and more likely, what impression would I make? Is that something I am proud of? Will my digital portrait land me the job or lose me the interview?
Not sure? Well then let's back up and address this question: What is on the internet about you right now? In addition to the more traditional methods of looking yourself up on Google or another search site, you will want to review your browsing history to find that out. There are other sites that can shed light on your digital image:
Spezify, zabasearch, pipl, and 123people. If you'd like to be proactive about what is being posted about you, Google can send you alerts when someone posts about you.
I would like to share my experiences with this process. I am a fairly private person, so I didn't expect to encounter a large digital footprint online. Since I don't post regularly on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites, there is not a great deal of personal information about me or my immediate family. I have websites which I have developed for work and my personal hobbies, but I control what is posted there about me. What I don't have control over is what others, often friends, post about me on their sites or accounts. This irritates me a little, since I feel that people should not post things online about others without their permission.
What I found was pictures of me on websites of friends or districts where I have worked. Despite having worked for years with teenagers (and hearing terrible stories about teachers who have been targeted for malicious postings), I did not find anything that I wouldn't want my husband or child to see. I'll be honest. I was hesitant to go through this process because I didn't want to see anything hurtful. Not knowing left me with a small but constant feeling of anxiety. Having finally overcome that fear and informed myself about the realities of my digital presence, I am now filled with a sense of relief. I also am committed to keeping my online portrait looking the way I want it to.
The next step for me is to research how vulnerable I am to another, more dangerous use of online data. The question I need to ask myself now is: To what degree do my online behaviors (like visiting sites that are not secure, enabling cookies, saving passwords, and creating accounts) elevate my risk for identity theft?
