My Digital Footprint (Final Post)
In a digital age which social media is used so much, particularly by younger generations, we often forget to consider the potential risks of these sites. A "Digital Footprint" is a data point left on the internet from our usage. It could be app usage, a Facebook post, Snapchat, or Google search. No matter what we do online, we leave a digital footprint. Even something that seems so private, such as a Skype call or an Email. It is important that we reflect on which sources we use and how they track us.
My main sources of Social Media include the following:
Instagram is the Social Media platform I use the most. I have had an account since 6th grade, so my footprint here is probably huge. I have two accounts, both private. The main account I use used to be public and is the first account I made, which has almost 2,000 followers. I have to say, sometimes I get annoyed with myself that I did not have a private account, as most of those people I don't even know. There are a good amount of followers who are my friends, family or at least acquaintances, but most of my followers are random people, most of which do not even interact with my account.
Twitter is another social media platform I use sometimes, but not super often. My account here is public just because I don't use it much anymore. I mainly just come here to look at news and different things when I'm bored.
I use Facebook only as something to look at when I'm really bored. My profile is mostly private, and I only accept friend requests from people I actually know. I joined Facebook when I was younger, and without thinking anything would be wrong with it, posted way too much personal stuff. You can add information such as family members and interests which is actually creepy, and the ads change based on those interests.
Snapchat:
Over the years, I have stopped using snapchat as much. This is another platform where I have so many people added that I don't even know, which isn't the best thing. I use this app everyday to send messages to my friends and to post on my stories. I also use it to take pictures I save to the "memories" for storage, which if someone got into my account, would be bad. Another safety issue could be the Bitmoji Maps. I leave my location on mainly for my friends to see, but with other people i don't know on there, it could become really creepy.
Tiktok:
Tiktok is the next big platform I frequently use. I mainly use it to watch entertaining videos and share them with my friends, but I do post sometimes and my account isn't private. There is an option to change privacy on some videos, to either friends only or visible to only yourself.
Other examples of social media sites I use include VSCO, Skype, Spotify, and Google. On all of these sites, I try to keep very personal information as private as possible, especially considering all the dangers that may come from them being put out there. I don't think I took my online privacy very seriously in the past, especially with my accounts like Instagram and Snapchat, which I made in 6th grade, not knowing what I was even doing. Visitors to these sites could probably get the most information from Instagram, as a lot of my posts have my friends, family and locations on them. And as we talked about earlier in the semester, as we sign up for these sites we sign contacts that could be used against us that we don't even read most of the time. Considering this and how our footprints may be used against us in our futures or how they may invade our privacy honestly creeps me out so much. We think about these sites as fun, and most of the time I don't even have a second thought over their safety. From now on, I definitely will be more aware of the risks of using social media and keeping a clean digital footprint.
As a Strat Com major, I found the Ad tracking article to be crazy. The fact that the advertising company had information about what people were interested in didn't bother me too much, as it is pretty much a given that sites track what we engage in, but the fact that the company dove deeper into things like tracking one woman to see the places she went. Reading this and finding out some of the things that the Ad industry does in order to track people and collect data shocked me. I knew our phones tracked us and our data, but I never considered how easy it is to access this. It makes me consider even more about what I do online and as a Strat Com major, how far companies will go in order to target specific audiences.
If I'm being completely honest, my relationship with technology is not all that healthy. As much as I hate to admit it, I am addicted to my phone. I didn't get a smartphone until I was in 8th grade (I was about 12/13 years old) and thinking about how young that actually is to have access to all the web and social media has to offer is kind of crazy. I think having a phone at that age makes sense for safety/communication purposes, and I did get a phone in 6th grade (age 11.) Ever since this, I have found myself constantly using my phone, especially with social media. I'll go on one app, get bored and go to another, then go right back to the other app. It's a constant loop of refreshing pages and checking probably hundreds of times a day to see if there's notifications. It drives me crazy that this is the relationship I have with technology, but I've grown up with it and that's just the way it is. Even when I was a little kid, my siblings and I would take turns on our computers playing games, and it makes me kind of sad to think how different this is from older generations, such as my parents who didn't grow up with this, and in their childhoods, spent much more time outside and communicating with their friends in person. I don't really think too much about it because it is so normalized these days. I also hate to think about the fact that this relationship is so addictive. I enjoy using social media and having a smartphone because I have the ability to talk to my friends and family anytime I want, as well as stay up to date with what's going on in the world.
Some statistics to tell the sad and embarrassing truth of just how much I use my phone is this: My daily average is 6 hours and 21 minutes of phone usage for this week. Today, I have already used it for 4 and a half hours and it's only 2:30 in the afternoon. My most used apps are Snapchat, messages, and instagram, all averaging somewhere between 2 and 5 hours each. Today alone, I have received 522 notifications. For this week, 720 notifications have been text messages and 659 have been snapchat. Though the number of notifications are this high, I only picked up my phone an average of 82 times a day, which was down by 55% from last week. That means that most of this time, I am on my phone without ever putting it down. That is just ridiculous to think about. It also frustrates me when I consider what else I could and SHOULD be doing with this time.
Overall, I think my generation has a very unhealthy, addictive relationship with technology. I think that by educating ourselves more on the safety risks or even health concerns over using this technology so much could help decrease our overall usage of this. After really taking these numbers into consideration, I hope to decrease my overall technology usage, as that's pretty sad. I'm actually embarrassed by these numbers because it's just crazy.
Sources:
https://blog.infoarmor.com/individuals-and-families/whats-digital-footprint-why-does-it-matter-tips-protecting-data
https://logos-world.net/
https://kscequinox.com/2017/04/cell-phone-addiction-among-college-students/
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