Digital Footprint

An audit of one’s digital footprint can be quite the eye-opening process. One can easily stand out in the digital realm or can be obscured underneath millions of others. I personally found that I can fall into either one of these categories. During an in depth search with just my first and last names, I found that those who share my name have much more of an online presence than I do because I couldn’t find myself in the first several pages of Google results. When my middle initial was included, however I jumped to the top of the results in a Google search. That discovery came as a relief because I decided a couple of years ago to include my middle initial as a part of my professional name. I decided to make sure that I continue to use my name with the initial and to increase my online presence.

One surprising finding was that pictures of me only appeared on Google Images when my full name was used and that the images that came up were only thumbnails of profile pictures from my social media accounts. I have been very strict on privacy settings when controlling my image on social media, so I was gratified to see that diligence has paid off. On the flip side, there should be more positive and carefully crafted pictures of me out there that can lend a face to my name and that is definitely something that I will be incorporating in the near future.

My social media results on Google painted a mixed picture. I realized that some things, such as URLs and biographical sections needed to be changed because they reflected a version of myself that I no longer want to be associated with. Specifically, I found that my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook handles reflected my high school self and would no longer be conducive to the image that I want for myself. I also found outdated information about myself on accounts that I no longer use. The danger of this is that these reflect little to none of the accomplishments that I am most proud of and put my future at risk. I sought to edit or remove these immediately and hope that they will soon be filtered out of searches so that I can have an online presence that I can be proud of.

That said, not everything that I found made me cringe in embarrassment. I did find that in association with my middle school, a top result that comes up is coverage of an event (shown below) during which I was recognized in my 8th grade year. I had long forgotten this event, and that just goes to show that nothing written about you ever truly goes away even if it has in your mind.

MGH, Professor in Training