What is a digital footprint? Why is it important to have a good digital footprint?

A digital footprint is pretty much what it sounds like, the mark you leave behind of you in the digital world.  Now your digital footprint is very important because there are people out there who are hackers and by looking at your digital footprint they can get private information about you.  An example would be if you were shopping on Amazon most of the time at checkout they ask you for your name, email, address, and credit card information.  Most of this information you wouldn’t want leaked to the public or strangers.  So it’s good to have social media pages such as Instagram and Facebook but be aware of the things you post and comment.  The reason I say this is because in the future when you go to apply for a job they will usually check your social media pages and maybe even Google you to see what comes up.  Now say you posted a inappropriate photo on your Instagram and your future boss saw it and now he’s decided not to give you the job because he thinks that you are unprofessional.  So to prevent this don’t post things that you don’t want other people to find out about you.  However, not having any social media or internet presence at all has it’s negatives as well.  If you don’t have any social media pages your boss may think that you aren’t updated on the things that are going on in the digital world or that you aren’t good with technology.  Now there are a few ways you can protect your digital footprint, one way is to log out after each session and the second way is to use private browsing mode.

Now there two things that I discovered when I searched my name up and one of those things was that you can find my email account just by typing in my full name(first, middle, last).  Aside from that I just discovered that there are a lot of people with the same name as me.  So the take away lesson from this is to make sure that you pay attention to the things you’re posting and the websites that you are giving your information to.  Stay safe on the web!!!