Digital Footprints By Erik Borge September 29, 2015

You can Google anything and get over 7 billion results in under 0.43 seconds. How powerful is that? If you were to Google your name, how many results would came up under your name? Imagine all the information you have posted online including pictures and videos. Posting information online is not a bad thing, however, if you post something that questionable or inappropriate, then it’s there for anyone to see including someone that may interview you for a job some day.

Social Media Today, many people use social media like snapchat, Facebook, twitter etc. to stay in touch with others. Even though you may have posted something on your own blog or social media site, not everything on your blog or social media site stays private and only on your site. People can download your pictures or information because it’s been saved to the Internet. This means anybody, anywhere can see your posts, whether they know you or not. Depending what you have been posting online, this can affect you later in life because people will look up your name up to find out more about you.

How digital footprints can affect your opportunities. When you apply to post secondary school, they may look up your name on the Internet to see what they can find out about you. There are so many people applying to schools and they want to select the best students. If a school has to choose between a large number of students, they won’t pick those that have a bad digital footprint. When you apply for a mortgage, the bank will look up your name online to learn more about you because they might not lend money to a person that has a poor digital footprint because that person could have a hard time keeping a job.

How to keep your digital footprint clean and ? There are no second chances. Once you post something online, it will stay up forever. Even if you remove a photo or information off the Internet, it will still be saved somewhere and could be viewed by someone and affect you future. To keep your digital footprint safe, follow these strategies: 1. Only post information and photos that are clean and tasteful. Ask yourself, if my future boss read or saw this, would they still hire me? 2. Filter what you put online. Even what you think might be set to private on social media may still be seen or tagged by other people. 3. On social media websites, the more friends you have the less control you have. Know who you are befriending online. Think twice about what you post and share online. 4. Never share your social media passwords or personal information with anyone.

Different kinds of digital footprints There are two kinds of digital footprints: passive and active. A passive digital footprint is made when data is collected without the person knowing and can be stored in different ways. For example, in an online environment, a passive footprint can be stored in a online database as a hit. It can track the user’s IP address, when it was created and where they came from. An active digital footprint is created when personal data is released by a user for the purpose of sharing information. Active digital footprints can also be stored in many ways. Online, an active footprint can be stored by users being logged into a site when making a change to the information posted.

What I learned and what I would pass on. What I learned is that the Internet is like another world and if you’re not careful, you could easily ruin your digital footprint. You need to really think twice before posting information and photos online, especially on social media sites because it could ruin your future opportunities. I would tell other students to be careful about what they say or post online because it will be stored on the Internet forever. What a young person posts online can affect them when they get older, because people will use the Internet to look up their name to find out more about them when they apply to post secondary schools or jobs.

What do you know about your own digital footprint?