Week 4: Your Digital Footprint

Before we had this lecture, I already knew quite a bit about what there was to know regarding someone’s digital footprint. It’s a pretty scary reality when you think about it, because anything you do online can be traced back to you. However, I didn’t realize it started as early in someone’s life as it does (at birth). I was born in 1994, and my parents didn’t have much of a digital footprint at that time, so I wouldn’t have created my digital footprint until later. But now, where lots of expecting mothers/fathers will post updates online, the digital footprint is a factor before you are able to control it. The thought of that is somewhat daunting. My digital footprint is fairly clean (I think so, anyways). I haven’t been all that controversial online, as I’ve tried to be fairly conscious of that. Back home in Winnipeg, I coach Ultimate Frisbee at my old high school. With being affiliated with a high school I was quite aware that I had to be careful about what I posted online. To be quite honest, I think that cautious route is the way to go. It’s much better to be safe than sorry when dealing with a digital footprint. It’s common knowledge that employers will check the online history of a possible employee, and to keep it clean is the right thing to do.

I think online identities have to be put out in the open. This is the new world that we live in; anything that’s said, whether it’s supposed to be confidential or not, can be viewed by anyone in the world. To try and stop that would be impossible. People should just learn to use their heads more and not post idiotic thoughts online.

This is the current state of my project. I’m not totally finished yet; I still have some pictures to add. The biggest thing that I learned when making this project is that Photoshop is hard and I’m not good at it. Even to work through the tutorials, it’s been a real struggle for me. I am not a tech-savvy person, so that has really hindered my learning. However, I have learned a lot to this point. A few weeks ago I was a deer in headlights when it came to this stuff, so I am proud of where I am today. But I do know that there is still a lot to learn.