(Response to prompt #2: My Own Digital Footprint)
I researched my digital footprint this week because I’ve heard stories of people who expect to find nothing and are surprised at how much the internet knows about them. I went into this exercise expecting to find little to nothing, and I was fully unsurprised by the end of it. I began with a Google search of my name, trying with and without my full birth name and every variation. I added details such as my hometown, schools attended, every form of social media I could think of, and the list goes on.
First, my empty and unused ResearchGate account popped up. Anything else I was able to find was something I was already fully aware of and had (thankfully) consented to be posted. It was all very mundane, a few run-of-the-mill news articles about community activities from my hometown, plus my high school’s graduation Instagram post. Reflecting on this, I felt grateful that people around me asked for my permission about these sorts of things. The few times my name or picture was shared, I remember always being with my family or school and being asked if I was ok with being mentioned or pictured.
Because my name is quite common in Canada and many English-speaking countries, results piled up for every search I did. Although obviously I was able to find my own social media accounts by typing in my usernames (which I can barely remember on my own), I wasn’t able to find any of my social media through searching my name and I think this is because a.) my name is so common, and b.) I’m rarely active on social media and when I am, I’m not doing anything exciting.
Being on Instagram led me to remember one thing I truly regret in my digital footprint, although I couldn’t find it. When I was 14 and freshly on Instagram, I made a very ignorant and hurtful white-saviour post. It was rude, belittling, and really, nobody asked for it. In my mind, I had thought I was being kind and uplifting, but it was the absolute opposite. I say this not to act as if I “didn’t know better”, because I did, but to highlight that intentions are not enough to steer us to make good choices- an important internet lesson I will teach my class one day.
It was my wise Mum who told me about 45 minutes later to delete it, and after becoming unreasonably defensive (as white people often do when we realize we are wrong) I listened. No evidence of the awful post has arisen to this day, and I still don’t know for sure if it affected anyone, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t consequences. This is another internet lesson I want to teach my class: that even if you could perfectly erase something from social media, what matters the most is how it affects the people who saw it.