When in doubt, Google it out

In order to find out more about myself and what exactly strangers could find out about me, I did the same thing I would do for any other subject: I Googled it. After googling my name, I realized I may need to adjust some of my social media privacy settings.

Being a Communications major interested in working in the world of social media, I have many personal accounts. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Wattpad, and Twitter take up a good deal of my time, not only because I post to my own feeds, but because I manage third-party accounts as well.

After my Google search, I realized there's a mix of public information and information I've put out there myself. We've got the basics like who my parents are, my sister's name, and my hometown, and then, due to social media, we delve a bit deeper. I'm a resident assistant at HPU, I'm a sister of Phi Mu Fraternity, my middle name is Kay, and Bennett Harris took my senior pictures in high school. I can't say I was exactly surprised at the information I found but I was shocked at how quickly it came up. I was pretty much the first result on the search page and it didn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

All of this reminded me of a time that I was scrolling through the search page on Pinterest. For those of you who don't know, Pinterest does have an algorithm that suggests content on your search page of things you might be interested in, specifically based off of recent searches. I had recently been searching for photography/portrait photography when lo and behold, right on my search page, was a picture of myself. I had never posted this picture, I had never been notified I was tagged in the picture, and frankly, I was confused as to anyone had gotten ahold of it because the last I knew, the photographer, my mom, and myself were the only ones who had it. Turns out the photographer had shared his work on Pinterest without letting me know. I can't say I was completely comfortable with it, especially considering my name was attached to it.

I think cutting back on giving out personal information might be the go, which even means no more giving out my cell number and creating a fake Gmail account for internet log-ins. I think I was a bit ignorant as to how accessible I was via the Internet before and now I'm seeing a change of ways is in order. 

Overall, I don't think social media is evil, but it's definitely something that can facilitate negative consequences when used improperly or in the wrong hands. We have to make sure users are aware of what they're giving away and the social media algorithms they're subjecting themselves too. We also have to remind ourselves that what we see online isn't necessarily real. It can be easy to lose yourself or compare yourself to others on social media, resulting in a lot of self-doubt and depression. We need more people to advocate for real-life posting and privacy-friendly accounts.

We shouldn't feel pressured or tricked into having it all out there on the Web. Just because the right to privacy isn't mentioned in the Constitution doesn't mean we should and need to give it up that easily.