My digital footprint is huge, certainly bigger than my physical footprint. This is, of course, to be expected, as I have delved deep into the internet as an avid user of technology. But what is this digital footprint I speak of? A digital footprint is everything that has every been written, posted, stored, uploaded, downloaded of you and by you.
It is important to have a good digital footprint because having a bad one can lead to many problems. Some of these problems may involve defamation, unemployment, incarceration, or simply embarrassment. It can be easy for others, like family, friends, future employers and law enforcement to track your activities on the internet, and if you're not careful to keep a good digital footprint, this can be detrimental to you.
After conducting a Google search on myself, I discovered that I am not very easy to find. However, this is probably because of two reasons. One, my name is rather common, so even though I did find a plethora of information on other women named like myself, I didn't catch anything about the real me. The second reason this is so, is that I typically use my nick name and middle initial for online profiles, not my full legal name. When I searched for myself by my abbreviated name, I was able to find my Facebook profile right away and with a little more search, I found my Flickr profile as well. Both of these profiles are easily viewed by others as they are not made private. However, I am well aware that IP addresses, and specific details of myself (such as my social security number, birthday, telephone, address) are all traceable if a persistent person/company is willing to search this information, because I know that at one point or another, I have given these details out to the internet. My digital footprint is quite large.
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| Inspiration Map of the most recent additions to my digital footprint |
