What is a digital footprint?
A digital footprint is basically what it says, a permanent ‘print’ of our digital posts, anything from accomplishments to photos. This digital footprint can be found by anyone if they search up you’re name online. By ‘anyone’ it really means ANYONE; future employers, partners, universities, and even you’re kids. You’re digital footprint can affect many different opportunities weather it be positive or negative. 4 years from now when I want to get into a university/college the people who are accepting my application for admission are going to google my name. When you google my name two full pages of information come up, there are articles about my dance competitions, swimming races, public speaking festivals and information about the world partnership walk which is an organization that I raise money for every year. This to me would be something positive, when the university google’s my name they would see my accomplishments and interests. It could affect me for the better if they think that because of the positive links found under my name I would be a good applicant for the school. However what if it went the other way and the digital footprint of the person applying for a job, let say, posted offensive comments online or just not so nice language to there social media platforms. The employer would find those posts and probably not even review their application and turn them away, even if they had the perfect qualifications for the job.
Comic explaining that we can’t erase what we post
A key with footprints on it
What I found when i searched my name
Strategies you can use you keep you’re digital, appropriate and safe.
Once you’ve posted something you can never get it back, so it’s important that you keep in mind that everything you post online is accessible by anyone. If you don’t want you’re parents, teachers, siblings or friends to see what you have posted online then don’t post it because chances are they will see it. It’s also important that everything you put online is positive, because negative comments cam be taken to offense and people may take things the wrong way even if you didn’t mean to offend them personally. The saying if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all applies for the internet as well, if you don’t have anything
nice to post don’t post anything at all.
Someone leaving there footprints in the sand Showing how everything gets saved
What have I learned & how will I share what I’ve learned?
While doing this project I have learned a lot of valuable information. I didn’t know how in detail our digital footprint goes, every product we purchase and all of our information is stored somewhere and will stay there forever. It was a helpful reminder to stay safe online, and in our world where everything we do has some aspect something digital. To help spread the word about what I have learned I will bring up the subject more as it seems to be less and less talked about now a days within friend groups. People seem to ignore the truth about the internet sometimes so I will try to bring this up in places where they haven’t received this information. I will continue to keep my digital footprint and online social media accounts safe and protected to use as an example to help others.
What to read before you post Wordle with all the words connected to this post
In conclusion I find that our digital footprint’s can be positive if we chose to live our lives in the most positive way we can. As long as we keep or posts positive, necessary, intelligent and helpful we can use the technology advancements of our time and age as an advantage to help us learn as grow as people and the world.
Thank you,
Ashiana Sunderji
Citations:
Image 1: http://www.granvillecsd.org/webpages/lgrandjean/using_the_internet.cfm?subpage=635376
Image 2: http://qualigence.com/examining-the-resounding-effect-of-our-digital-footprint-part-2/
Image 3: https://www.pinterest.com/lastfootprint/human-footprint-humanity/
Image 4: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/466755948857948220/
Image 5: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/695259830033580034
Image 6: Made by Ashiana Sunderji using http://worldcloud.com
Short Clip: Made by Ashiana Sunderji using http://dsco.com