This week we had a seminar by Jesse Miller who speaks on media literacy, social media education, and digital trends. He brought up numerous topics that are important to recognize when it comes to the internet, and some of which were ones that changed my point of view. One topic in particular was in allowing screen time for children makes them safer members of the internet. I can recognize that this can be true, but in recalling my past on the internet, I was by no means safe. There were countless times that I had not realized that I was in an unsafe situation because I was only a child. One website I used often was called “Club Penguin Channels” and it was a chatroom for the children’s online video game of Club Penguin. I would say that a lot of the members on this chatroom were children, but there was still many adults. Oftentimes, these adults would send links that I would click on and they would create viruses on my computer as well as pop up inappropriate videos that I was unable to close. I remember becoming close friends with someone on that chatroom to the point that we decided to video chat. I was only 8 or 9 and I video chatted them. Luckily, the person on the other side was a child as well, but what if it had not been? Even as I got a little older, I would spend hours on Omegle which is a randomized video chatting software whereby at least half of the members are predators. Similarly I used a subcategory of the texting app Kik called “Match and Chat” which resulted in many of the same demographic of people as Omegle. Even though I spent more time online and playing video games than the average child, I was still not savvy enough nor was I safe on the internet, far into my late teens. 

After the seminar, I likely won’t change any of my behaviour on the internet as I have already become pretty well versed in what not to do because of my experiences. I feel that I have a pretty safe footprint and I am not concerned with my current use. Additionally, when researching my name on Google, I found only my expected results which were links to my Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest as well as the website of my previous workplace. From the website of my past job, in google images a photo of me does show up, but so does all of my coworkers. Ultimately, my old managers just need to delete me from the website as I do not even work there anymore!

A way in which we can teach learners how to be aware of their digital footprint is by simply having conversations about it. You can discuss the repercussions of posting certain material and show examples of what happened to people because of what they posted. A scare tactic should not be emphasized, however, it is important to demonstrate examples of negative digital footprint as they may not realize what they are doing will elicit consequences. The video Four Reasons to Care About Your Digital Footprint by Internet Society is a great resource to share with older students. I too carried the notion of “Why should I care about my digital footprint? I have nothing to hide.” but Internet Society brought up a great explanation that even if you do not have something to hide, its that companies are profiting from your footprint and using it to alter your internet experiences. A direct experience of this is that I found out that one website I used years ago had shared out my password and it became compromised throughout numerous websites. A website to be able to tell if your email has been in a data breach is https://haveibeenpwned.com/ which will list websites that have compromised your email. Additionally, as every website nowadays is asking for your cookies, they are able to track previous websites that you have visited. Where this comes an issue is when you are booking flights and hotels. If flight and hotel websites are noting that you are searching on different sites for travel, they will increase the prices. The way around this is to go on incognito mode to book flights and hotels because the price difference is distinct.