Upon searching my phone number the
neighboring town of Baraboo came to view on the map. Although Baraboo is not my
actual hometown, it is within 10 miles of the City of Wisconsin Dells where I
did grow up. After searching my zip code I was able to see how this area is
viewed by the census; it is a relatively small town with good graduation rates,
a large group of veterans, and fairly average American median income. The
demographic for my census region was 92% white which was surprising, living
there for so long I had grown up with many Native Americans that did not seem
to be represented on the map by the New York Times.
I started my social media search on
Facebook where I was able to find myself even with a few different variations
of my last name. After clicking on my profile (the only one being listed) I was
able to see my profile picture, cover photo, and some VERY outdated information
about what shows I like to watch, music, books, etc. I was surprised with how
little information I was able to access. I thought Facebook was going to be the
most revealing of all my social media accounts. After searching for a
third-party search engine, I was able to find my Instagram feed. I felt that
Instagram was actually my least revealing account. My most informative source
of who I am is my account on Twitter; there are no privacy settings and
thousands of 140 character thoughts for future employers to sift through. After
seeing what information I have made public to anyone at anytime I definitely
want to research what I can do to protect myself online.
Finishing my search with Google I
was able to find links to most of my social media accounts, pictures posted by
my high school, and even my grandfather’s online obituary, which I have never
accessed before. The information gained from these searches have some validity,
there is some content that is accurate and a lot that is outdated. This
exercise gave me some insight into what future employers or anyone for that
matter can access. I feel that at this point in time it may be a new societal
norm to screen your own social media in preparation for the workforce,
something our parents never had to deal with.
Yes, this exercise definitely made me think about what employers can see to. Also made me think about what we might not consider to be a poor choice to post and have accessible may not be something that future employers approve of - especially employers that are not 'Millennial heavy' in their employers and might not understand the way that we use social media & the internet
ReplyDelete