The following is what I learned about digital foot prints, and my answer to the three questions.
Q. How might your digital footprint affect your personal brand and future(e.g. school and work)opportunities? Why is it important to be aware of one’s digital footprint? Give at least two examples.
Answers: When a school(University) and company are able to trace your footprint ( search your name on social media is a possible way of dong so) on line. They can deduce from your post what kind of person you are and what’s your personality simply by looking through the post and image that you shared. From all these information they could also found out if you have any violent or criminal preference. So it is very important to be aware of ones digital footprint and that we are sending positive message, because if the school or the company do come across something that will darken your history. They might have second thought of taking you in as a student or an employee. There for it is possible that a perfect opportunity will slip out of your hands.
One example that shows that we have to think twice before we post anything is when a university finds that a student applying had once through social media posted an image that shows direct racism. The university rejects this student even if he gets a good mark in the test. Another example that demonstrated this point is a manager of a very prominent respectable corporation who googled an applicant’s account and noticed that he had once threatened someone in one of his comments on a social platform. After much thought he does not accept that employee for fear of a public disgrace on his company’s reputation if rumours starts to corculate.
Q. How would you explain the idea of “Digital permanence” to anyone in your spheres of influence: other students, your family members, your teachers, etc.? Why should we care and be aware of this concept?
Answers: Digital permanence is referring all the data that had been stored and kept in the computer. These data shows what website you visited (sometime in the form of a cookie “A combination of numbers and letters that were sent to the computer in order to save the website) the information about your self that you submitted to a website in order to create an account or to transfer money. These data will stay in the computer forever unless you delete them.
We should be aware of these permanent data because they could let the advertiser discover what are your needs and where your commercial interest lies. By knowing these crutial facts they will send Ads to you acoording to your likings. A far more important reason to know about the concept of Digital permanence is that from the many information about yourself you give to various websites. Unwanted “third person” could link the information from all those sites(The sites you give private information into) together to create a detailed file that contains a lot of your personal info. So in this way our privacy is greatly affected.
Q. Describe at least three strategies(e.g. consider passwords, cookies, security, etc)that you can use to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe.
Firstly, when you post some thing, think if the comment you are making can hurt someone or can make things bad against you. This is very important because university examiner some time check you on social media to determine your personality. A positive posting habit can make a good impression for yourself.
The second way to keep your digital footprint safe is to use some privacy protecting website or app to help you protect your information from becoming public, and it also helps to block out advertisement. one of the privacy keeping app is called ” Ghostery ” and there are a lot of other app that does the same thing.
The third way to make your digital footprint more private is to go on to one’s Browser settings and click on the option “Send a ‘do not track’ request with your browsing traffic” or such and the system will automatically secure some of youe data. Though there is no garantee that your personal information is compleltely safe.
The Last way to keep one’s digital footprint appoperriate is avoiding mentioning your own name, address, phone numbers,the school you attend.Don’t sometime even show where you have been. If such information are traced by someone who is upto no good they could learn every thing that is important about you. For instance, your living habit, your income, what place you visit often. Those things could lead to some really serious issues.
When I googled myself and here is what I found.
I googled my Chinese name.I first tried the Chinese version written in Chinese then typed in the English spelling of it which is pronounced as “LicunWang”. Other than founding the name in an article about a member of an old Chinese people club in America and the name of a general appearing in an old Chinese book written in the Qing Dynasty(The last dynasty in China, there is a lot of information on google about it, I wouldn’t say much here.) I can’t find anything that had the least connection to me. I go and looked at “images” and still couldn’t find anything.
The two main reason that I couldn’t find any thing about me is because first my Chinese name is already very rare so there are few people who even shares my name. Secondly, I do not use any social media except” We chat”( A Chinese social media), so there isn’t a good chance that my post and my image in a Chinese social media could end up in google.
In Conclusion, the key to be a safe internet user can be rounded up in two point. First, think before we act, when we are posting or paying. Is that gonna reveal my information, is this appropriate etc. Second, be cautious of every thing concerning the internet, don’t put too much trust on anybody.
Thank you for letting me share these information with you.
THE END