Digital footprint
Aidan Starr
September 16th, 2020
Digital footprint
Aidan Starr
September 16th, 2020
How Might your digital footprint affect your future opportunities?
Your digital footprint tells employers, colleges, bosses, friends, and family who you are online. You may be a mature young adult looking for a job but the Instagram picture you forgot about that is still online might tell people otherwise. Your digital footprint is a way people can identify who you are online and find old pictures, tweets, and other posts or comments you might not want certain people to see. Having an unprofessional digital footprint will affect you by not getting the job you applied for by a simple google search if they find you aren’t the right fit for reasons as they think you are not professional enough or might harm their company’s image. An unprofessional digital footprint can affect what schools you get into if they find old pictures or comments that go against their beliefs specifically mean or inappropriate content you have made public. Lastly, you can get into legal trouble, and pictures you have taken can be used against you.
Describe at least three strategies that you can use to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe.
The first strategy you can use is to prevent something you do not want to be publicized and self-evaluate your post before you put onto the internet forever. Simply ask yourself if it is helpful, is it necessary and is it kind. That is something I do before posting, and it is something that everyone should do. The second strategy is making sure you have a private account and make sure you know who is following you. Having a private account also comes down to safety as you do not want random strangers seeing what you post as they can get access to a lot of personal information. The last strategy is going back to old posts you might not want others seeing and deleting them or even deleting old accounts to ensure your digital footprint remains clean and safe.
What information did I learn that I would pass onto other students?
The biggest piece of advice I have is making sure that all your social media are private and to think before you post and ask the 3 self-easement questions about your post. Not posting everything you do is another piece of advice I have learned and that there are a time and a place to post and if it is not kind, helpful, or necessary you probably don’t want to post it to save yourself in the future. Another super important thing is to Google yourself, this is something almost every employer and school will do. Keeping a list of your accounts and passwords is another helpful strategy everyone can benefit from.
Pictures from bing.com, teachthought.com, medium.com, bigfoot.ie, blogs.informatica.com and cultureofyes.ca
