SSSC 23 Things Digital – Thing 4: Digital Footprint

I watched the video Orange Digital Dirt. This video is one of many videos currently circulating on keeping yourself aware of your presence online. Watching this video reminded me of the videos we used to watch in secondary school about internet safety. In my college and university courses being aware of your online presence is a necessity as most of those on the course will be working as freelancers.

I googled myself to find out what my digital footprint was. I have a strong digital footprint. The first page of results shows my Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linked In and Mandy accounts. This is not a problem for me as I have tried to raise my digital footprint within the last few years due to my other work as a freelance Costume Maker. This role makes me very aware of my social media presence and digital footprint and I check my privacy settings on social media regularly. The only part of checking my presence on google that worries me is that my website does not show up on the first page of results and as such I will need to work harder to raise its profile. I also need to update my about pages from various social media websites as they are slightly out of date.

I have friends and family who work as nurses and teachers. Many of them use pseudonyms in their social media profiles to keep their work and personal lives separate and to prevent their clients from finding them. As my other job is a freelance costume maker using a pseudonym would make it harder for my clients to find me and examples of my work. Almost all of my social media profiles link back to my website.

I read the article from Just Creative: 8 tips to effectively manage your digital footprint. I feel that the most important of the tips is to “Know What’s Out There”. It is difficult to regulate your digital footprint if you don’t know what is on the internet about you as the information doesn’t always come from you. Not only could your friends post things that you don’t want anyone to see put there, may be someone who shares a similar name and job title that has information that may cast you in a bad light. It is also important as if you know something out there reflects you in a negative light then you have the opportunity to tell whomever find the information the circumstances of the information before they reach a harsh conclusion. For example I once knew a woman who was involved in a drink driving related accident. The newspaper wrote an article about it and as she knew her digital footprint she could now tell future employers that she was now tee total as a result.

I also feel that the passwords tip is important and I am considering using a password manager in the future.

I looked at my Location History and My Activity on my google account and I was slightly surprised to see how much information is saved by Google. It stored over the last years’ worth of searches and locations. I have two google accounts – one for personal and one for work. And it was interesting to see that I had limited my work account’s data storage but my personal account I hadn’t thought to limit. I had also not realised that it stored audio clips from whenever I had used the Ok Google feature which I have subsequently turned off. Although the other features like search and location history do hold a lot of data I do appreciate how the apps work with the information such as the location history informing the Google Maps app or Google saving my contacts as I frequently lose my phone or get lost.

Video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJfw3xt4emY
Article link:

http://justcreative.com/2016/05/09/8-tips-to-effectively-manage-your-digital-footprint/

My website address is:

www.bobbijeanpshields.weebly.com