Vanity Search

What does your digital footprint look like? This is an opportunity to explore your digital presence. The more you are involved in online communications, the greater your digital footprint can become. It is important that you do this before you start to set up additional accounts for this class and interact in these spaces. You will have a chance to explore how your digital footprint changes over time as you interact in new spaces. This is important for you to understand as you will need to be able to help students understand the importance of being aware of their own digital footprints. This is a simple thing to do. Simply go to Google and enter your name in quotes (i.e.: “Chris Bigenho”). Then explore the results. Make sure you look at the returns for web pages, photos and videos. Take notes on what you find and reflect on what it means for the way you use the web and how you are represented. You will then write a post in your blog (Instructions for Blog are below) that addresses what you learned in your first vanity search.

When I put my name in google I found something interesting. Apparently Michael Barrett is a very common name. While looking through the pages I did not see one thing about myself despite the fact that I am active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and there are multiple videos on YouTube of me singing at various events. I found in my search that there are attorneys, criminals, conductors, singers, doctors, and more. The most interesting was a former baseball player who had a pension for getting in scuffles with other players. After reviewing it appears that my digital footprint is either very small or there are just too many much more interesting Michael Barretts in the world. This is probably because I try to limit my online activity as much as possible.