Final Blog Post: My Online Presence

I was born in 2002, this means that I grew up with electronics and social media. However, I am the youngest in my family which means I had to follow the same rules my older siblings did. I did grow up watching cartoons and kids shows on television, like all kids my age, but I did not receive my first phone until I was in sixth grade and it only could call and text. I received my first smartphone (iPhone) when I was fourteen years old and was very excited to craft my online presence. Thankfully, people told me to be very careful with what I posted on social media because anyone can have access to it, but that did not stop me from creating these social media profiles and putting my personal information online. 

I have a Facebook account, Snapchat account, Instagram account, YouTube account, Netflix account and a Pinterest account. When I googled myself for this post, the only sites that showed up were my LinkedIn and Facebook. However, when I scrolled down further, I found a website called the Next College Student Athlete (NCSA). I was on the varsity golf team in high school and this website somehow had my personal information such as: my height, my weight, what sport I played, the high school I attended, my home town, and the year I graduated high school. 

Having personal information about me online is scary, but with all of the tools and contraptions the government has put in place such as, the trackers on police cars I talked about in my last blog, and the facial scanners in China that track everyone and rate people on their social grade, does not make much of a difference because our personal information will get released to the government one way or another. 

Even though I feel that I am not on my phone as much as some of my peers, my phone's screen time statistics state that I spend a daily average of three hours and forty minutes on my phone. This daily average does not include how much time I spend on my computer watching television or doing homework assignments. This gives me an unhealthy perception of what the world really is because I spend half my time connecting through a tiny computer.

As I continue to utilize technology in my personal and professional life, I want to create more limits on my habits and attempt to monitor my personal information that is available to the public. While there is always going to be some things that slip through the cracks, the more that we pay attention, the better chance we have of keeping private information private.