The year was 2011. I was just going into my first year of middle school and people started to talk about this thing called snapchat. At the time, I wasn’t interested in anything that had to with social media stuff or anything of that nature. I was raised to be wary of the internet and spent most of my time on my phone fueling my video game addiction and using it for what I got it for. Talking to my parents, talking to my brother, and making sure that I got a ride home. In fact, my phone couldn’t even run snapchat or anything like that because…
This is what I had to work with. I barely used my ipod touch at that point, which my brother and I both had at that point as well. He would have been in high school at the time and was thoroughly addicted to the app, so in an effort to make myself seem different from my brother… I stuck with the older stuff. I would get a phone in the next year or so as I started hanging out with friends more and my parents started to leave me at the house alone, but still wouldn’t get on snapchat till the 8th grade, right before my freshman year of highschool.
At this point, my digital footprint was non existent. Even still because I don’t post anything on my social media anywhere, this is what comes up when you search my name. People on their soundcloud, different news articles, twitter, and linkedin photos. You can gather a lot of information though from just these simple image searches as well, which is what I will mainly be focusing on today when it comes to the before images. I can gather that these people here are athletes, this woman right here is a part of the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame and was inducted recently, within the last two years. You can also get the sense that most people with the name Olivia or Farrell, or both, are white or caucasian presenting.
Now when we narrow down the search to learn more about me specifically, let’s move on to if we had a few other keywords as well.
Now that we add drumline in front, the things that come up are significantly narrowed down to things that have to do with me, and things that I’m involved in. What comes up is a photo of me from freshman year during an interview that was done during the first year that marching band was founded. Right next to it is the photo that is used for my linkedin. The next two photos are from band camp when I was a sophomore, over here is an instagram post about me that has to do with my involvement in Kappa Kappa Psi, the band fraternity.
I could go on about what you learn from this, but why don’t I break it down for you.
You learn that my name is Olivia Farrell.
Now this is self-explanatory. You would have to know my name to look me up on google or anything, but this does a lot more than just give you my name. This gives you access to the photos that I showed you before on top of access to my parents. It’s highly likely that people will be named Olivia or have the last name Farrell, but it’s not as likely to be Olivia Farrell born to parents Christine and David Farrell, even if their names are insanely common as well.
From the interview that is attached to the first photo of me that comes up, as well as the first link that comes up, is that I started as freshman at High Point University in 2020. Meaning that I was a freshman around the age of 18 or 19 at the time. Now, two years later, I am either 20 or 21 years old based on some simple math. This simple math also leads to the conclusion that, if everything went right in regards to schooling.
I am a junior. This means that I am more than halfway done with my college career and most likely, you would be able to find what my bachelors will be in or if I’m going to be seeking higher education based on my linkedin. This is also insanely telling of my socioeconomic status or if I might be taking out loans to achieve this level of education. However, if you were able to find my parents and see where they went to school or to look up what kind of school high point is, you might make an assumption that I can afford this school at least to some degree. You also might find that information out from the scholarship information that comes with being a part of the band.
Looking further into the interview that I mentioned before and the linkedin account that I have. You can figure out very quickly that I am currently in North Carolina, most like the Highpoint-Greensboro-Winston-Salem area, but now with that information aside, you can also find out where I am originally from. In the interview that I did they introduced my quote by saying my last name and where I am from. Not only does this give you an idea of where I live, but further dives into socioeconomic status since this area is definitely not a cheap place to live. On top of that, they, they being the person that is making these google searches, also are now familiar with where my family might be or if we had lived there at one point.
Finally through my linkedin, interview, and photos online it’s safe to say that I have a lot riding on what happens here on campus at times. I’m at almost every sports game because of my involvement with the band, I practice for hours a week because of the band which is also on campus, Nido and I are on a first name basis at this point because of it, I perform shows in front of the student body multiple times a week, etc, etc.
I lucked out even more since I don’t have any pictures on my Instagram or any other form of social media. Ultimately, what I learned today is that my own media literacy even at a young age really helped me in the long run as there isn’t anything embarrassing about me on the internet that I didn’t put out there myself. Another thing that people would learn from what’s up there is that I’m reliable, driven, I have musical talent, and I’ve held a leadership position for almost my entire four years here on this campus.
This class made me insanely thankful for my past self for making the correct decisions, my current self in adding to those facts that are out there, and my future self for being an appealing candidate to employers while also keeping myself relatively safe given the information out there. I can only hope that I am able to maintain this level of safety and help others to do the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment