Blog 13: Digital Footprint

As I reflect upon my own online footprint, I think that I have a decent amount of social media apps that I would say is pretty large. The applications that I own are: 

 Instagram

I normally post every three months. These are usually photos of my friends and me on vacation. The photos I post are nothing scandalous and show nothing of bad behavior. My account is private so that only the people who follow my account can see. These are mostly friends but I also let an acquaintance from school or a friend of a friend follow me. I have a little over eight hundred followers so even though my photos are private, it is still a lot of people who can see my stuff. 

Snapchat

I use Snapchat to communicate with my close friends. I do not add anyone I do not know or even acquaintances. I have about a hundred people on Snapchat. I will post funny things on my stories but because it’s people I trust, I feel comfortable sharing the more adventurous part of my life. I got a Snapchat in the middle of my senior year of high school. That was quite rare to get the app so late but I thought I was slightly sketchy and intrusive that the company could possibly save the photos I take (not that I would send something odd) as well as that I knew my friends were addicted to it. Now that I have it, I have realized how often I use it, making me possibly addicted as well.

Facebook

I go on Facebook about two times a year. One, to thank the people who wished me a “Happy Birthday” and, two, to figure out what the name of my cousin’s girlfriend is. I have only “posted” three times when I changed my profile picture. I don’t really like Facebook and the only reason why I have it is because my high school soccer team posted information through it.

   LinkedIn

I use LinkedIn a lot to connect with my peers and companies. I do not post often but I enjoy reading other people’s posts. I update my LinkedIn at least once a month.

 Youtube

I have a YouTube channel where I post videos. They are mostly school projects. I am on YouTube every week for HPU’s entertainment news (Point Blank). 

 Spotify

I wouldn’t call this a social media site but Spotify allows you to connect to friends to know what songs they listen to where it be on a playlist they made or liked. If following them, you can even see what they are listening to at that moment.

This blogger site is another addition to these websites. 

If a visitor were to view my social media pages, they would find out a good amount of information about me. They would know that I run, I make videos, who I’m friends with, my relatives, and the kind of music I listen to. Although this does tell a lot about me, I do not believe it’s information that is not too private. The “private” information that can be accessed through my social media is probably my email, my birthday, and my address. This is mostly because of LinkedIn wanted employers to have some way of connecting me. 

After reading the article Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? by The Atlantic, I do have to agree that the internet can make some people feel lonelier than they actually are. I can see how Facebook induces fears, “interfering with our real friendships, distancing us from each other, making us lonelier.” When I was younger, in middle school, I remember people would post things on social media and I would feel a bit lonely. I would question the worth of my friendship, wondering if they liked me as much as I liked them. Now that I’m older, I don’t feel it is much but I do feel that a lot of Instagram is “fake.” A factor is that people only post happy things, promoting their “gorgeous” lifestyle, creating an artificial life that doesn’t truly exist. I have days that I could get rid of my social media apps. They can stress me out at times and feel like I’m not living when I’m scrolling on my phone for hours. Unfortunately, people use these apps as their primary way of communicating, causing me to be out of the loop. The serotonin that a person gets from Snapchat notifications is a poison that dives me even deeper. “According to Burke, the passive consumption of Facebook also correlates to a marginal increase in depression.” This is understandable because seeing people’s lives rather than talking in person can cause you to feel lonely. 
Sometimes I wish I was able to live in a time where people could to get to know me in person before they looked at my page online. I feel like I would rather have someone learn about me through me rather than my Instagram.

Citations: 

Marche, Stephen. “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 21 Jan. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/.

(Photos)

By: HIV.gov | Published: May 29, 2017. “5 Things To Know About Instagram 2017.” HIV.gov, 17 Apr. 2020, www.hiv.gov/blog/5-things-to-know-about-instagram-2017.

“Snapchat.” Twitter, Twitter, twitter.com/snapchat.

“Log In or Sign Up.” Facebook, www.facebook.com/.

“Timeline of LinkedIn.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Oct. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_LinkedIn.

“YouTube: A Guide for Parents.” Net Aware | NSPCC, www.net-aware.org.uk/networks/youtube/.

“Spotify: Listen to New Music and Play Podcasts - Apps on Google Play.” Google, Google, play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.music.