citationsMy digital footprint, to say the least, isn’t very big. When I searched up my name on Google a few days ago some things I knew would come up did. One thing I found was an old YouTube account that I had deleted a while ago. The YouTube channel wasn’t anything serious, the videos were just mash ups of popular songs at that time a.k.a. summer of 2015. Yes, I got bored during the two month break so my idea was to put together a few of my favourite songs and release them on YouTube. The videos itself got pretty good views especially one of them that was called “Just  Little Bit of Your Halo” which was a mash up of “Halo” by Beyoncé and “Just a Little Bit of Your Heart” by Ariana Grande. It got a little more than a couple thousand views, but unfortunately I don’t have it saved to my laptop and I deleted the account. There was no particular reason I deleted the channel, but I just felt like since I don’t have time to use it anymore there was no point having it. As I already stated, it did come up when I searched my name but all the site information said was “this page hasn’t shared anything with you yet.” If you go on images it does have the thumbnails of the songs. If University’s were to search me up or jobs were considering hiring me, I personally don’t think that them finding those things will make them say no because I don’t think it’s anything inappropriate. The songs that I mashed up were all non-explicit and they were songs that every one of all ages would like. Along with the thumbnails on images, I found a few pictures of me from my Instagram account before I knew how to make it private. Not any bad pictures, just of me smiling. I don’t think that would turn off University’s or jobs, that’s me being friendly and happy.  If a person were to use the internet to cyberbully or hurt someone then that could stop them from having a good impression on schools. My digital footprint so far in my life, won’t affect my future in a bad way.

There are many strategies someone can use to keep their digital footprint appropriate and safe especially for high school students like us. One of them is to make sure to never put your full name on the internet and to always use your first name with the first initial of your last name. That way you don’t expose yourself on the internet where anyone can find your identity. Another strategy to keep your digital footprint appropriate is to always think before you post something. Although it may sound cliché it’s the most important. Before you tweet or comment something mean to someone always think “would I say this to the person’s face” because the answer is most likely going to be a “no”. Before you post a picture always ask yourself “how could this change my future”. If there is at least one then you probably shouldn’t post it either. Last strategy that I thought of is to use privacy settings on your social media accounts. Make sure that only people you allow can see your profiles and the pictures you post. There are still tons of other ways to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe, but, I believe, the three that I have just stated are the most important and easy.

Over the past few days working on this assignment I learned that no matter what you search up, post, comment, and basically share something on the internet under your name then you added something to your digital footprint. Although it is inevitable to not increase the size of your digital footprint there are ways to keep it safe and appropriate that you don’t need to worry about schools and jobs finding anything sketchy, but posting something bad can affect your future. You may think that they won’t find it because your account is private, but they will find a way to dig it up. Always think twice before posting anything.

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