My Online Identity
When thinking of my online identity, I usually split it into two categories: academic and social. While I actively post to social media knowing that my post is public and people beyond my followers can possibly see it, I am also aware that my academic online footprint, while supposedly secure, is probably not as secure as I would like to believe. After reading Eric Sheninger’s article about the digital footprint, I am more cognizant about what I post online and what I am tagged in because I know that future employers can dig up almost anything about me online.
My primary social media is Instagram. I don’t post too often, but when I do, I always put my best foot forward to give the most exciting version of my life. Of course I never post photos with alcohol or write obscene captions in order to keep my Instagram clean for any future employers that might see. Even my Finsta, or fake Instagram, while more casual, is still clean enough because, again, I don’t know who exactly can see that account. Almost all of my photos on my main Instagram are with friends and many from the track team in order to project that I am well-rounded with a healthy social life. I try to keep my Instagram fairly neutral politically because I just don’t believe that Instagram is a good platform for political debate. I rarely post on my Facebook, but I am often tagged in photos by my mom during important life events where she lists my accomplishments, and all of her friends comment praise. My Twitter is the social media that needs the most cleaning up. I never tweet, but the things I retweet are usually raunchy jokes and left-leaning political posts every once in a while. Overall my social presence on the internet is what one would expect of a teenage girl: pictures with friends on Instagram, pictures with parents on Facebook, and jokes on Twitter.
My academic presence online really only consists of papers and projects on Google Drive from 7th grade all the way through my first semester of college. These are also paired with cringy middle school video projects on YouTube, mediocre Spanish skills on Duolingo, and my forum posts for my poverty studies classes on Sakai. While none of these academic writings and projects are available to the public except for my YouTube videos, I am not naive enough to believe that certain companies or data collectors could not get access to them. However, I am overall proud of my academic writings, and though my political leanings might be apparent in some of my opinion papers, I believe that my academic development an writing quality will show through.
I am happy with the picture my overall web presence shows. I believe that my presence is authentic and shows me to be well-rounded and intelligent. With that being said, I know I especially need to clean up my Twitter and Finsta because, unfortunately, a joke or event in my life I think is funny now might not be so funny to employer later down the road. So, while I believe that we all should use the internet for our pleasure, I also believe that we must watch what we post because we never truly know who is watching.
