Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Over the Weekend: Self Search

I spent some time looking myself up on the internet over various outlets online. I first started by entering some of my basic information (Address, Phone Number, Email) on a few websites. I actually found that by entering my basic information online, not a lot of personal information was revealed. In Access Dane basically a picture of my farm came up with some information about the land worth and that was about it. When putting my cell phone number on the White Pages website, the only information that was available was that I am located in the Madison/Fitchburg area. And basically in the Mapping America sight, it just pinpointed my parent's farm and told me how dominating the white population is, which I was already aware of.

I followed up the basic search of myself by doing some research on different social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). I tend to stay protective of myself on social media so I wasn't expecting to find too much. Since becoming an adult, I have limited my profile on Facebook and have kept a close eye on anything that gets posted on my timeline. However, it is a bit creepy that people who are not my Facebook friends are able to see my age, education, and work experience. My Instagram account is private, meaning that anyone who I do not accept can't see my profile or posts.

After looking on Social Media, I concluded my research by looking myself up using Google search. Similar to my previous search, the first links after searching my name on Google was my various Social Media profiles. Most of the pictures and information that came up was about stuff that I have posted on Pinterest with no private information exposed. It was actually super interesting that when I typed my name in, so many pictures, like a lot of pictures, of Hilary Duff came up. I have absolutely no idea why this happened, but I found it pretty comical. Overall, I feel pretty comfortable about what information is exposed about me online.

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