Week 1 Adventure: My Very Own Internet Vanity Search

    Is it so vane to want to see what type of digital footprint one has made thus far in one's life? Or would it be vigilant, if not also eye-opening, to see just how much of one's personal information is available to the public and, thus, the world? Like it or not, our personal and professional information finds its way to the World Wide Web. This blog post is about what I can find about me on the internet and the kind of digital footprint I have made.

      The typical first search for oneself on the internet would begin with the opening of a Google search engine. I typed my name in quotation marks and found a few of the obvious accounts I created that were for the purpose of presenting my professional self. This includes a LinkedIn profile and blog. I can also immediately find my accounts for Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. I created a book on StoryJumper that pops up as well. There is a profile of me on the Phi Sigma Pi CORE website that includes my picture and affiliation with Texas A&M Commerce. 

    Apparently I am not the only Rosemary Babcock who is currently living or who has ever lived, so a search for my name will require someone to know who they are looking for exactly. There are links to pages for other Rosemary Babcocks as well as obituaries. But if you do know who you're looking for, you can find some of my personal information on sites like Spokeo, which share's people private information. I am not happy about sites like this as it shares the names of people who are associated with you as well as your age, places you've lived, and sometimes your middle name and your address or phone number. 

    Scrolling more on a Google search, I can find my Foap account, which is a website where I have posted some of my photography that is for sale. Also, I am listed in the staff directory on the website of my current employer. I am glad to say this is all I can find about myself with a simple Google search. What you will not find is my Facebook account because I have made it non-searchable and I use a pseudonym. 

    A new Google search that includes my first, middle, and last name in quotes will turn up some results, but I had to scroll through it a bit to find a few listings of myself. One of them was my name listing me as a graduate and my major in the Shorthorn Graduate magazine that was published by University of Texas in 2008. I also found posted publicly on govsalaries.com website my salary that I received from my previous employer and the statistics related to that position and salary. 

    Well, I suppose with me writing this blog post, I have provided to people a shortlist of what anyone can find about me on the internet. This means I am giving it all away for free, if I choose to be specific. Instead, I will provide generalizations. When I searched for my name and my home town of where I grew up, I can easily find newspaper articles and pictures of myself. I made the paper more than several times due to me winning competitions in art and UIL and for making A or AB Honor Roll. It doesn't help that my friend's mom was an editor and writer for the local newspaper, so I have even found myself in the Birthday Wishes section of the paper. I also wrote a letter to the editor once or twice that can be found. These were newspapers that were digitized once that kind of technology was available, as it wasn't internet-ready when they were first published. As a matter of fact, our local newspaper used to publish class assignments for elementary students so that kids would know who their teacher would be for the upcoming school year. This means, just the very act of attending a school can get your name in the paper! I have even appeared in the Church News section, where the church had thanked me for attending services. Below is an example of me appearing in the local newspaper for straight As in high school.

    If you know where to look, as I do, you would be able to find public records related to my marriage and divorce. Also, with the correct words in the search engine, I can find my book publication. I published a poetry book and some essays on a website and their ebooks can be purchased and downloaded. I am not currently marketing them, as I want to make some edits before I market them again. 

    This is all I can find about myself on the internet. I would say that's probably a good thing! I believe to look me up anywhere else, you'd have to be logged into the website. For instance, I have a family tree on Ancestry.com. Also, since I am a Local Guide on Google Reviews, people would be able to find more things that I have written or more pictures that I have posted. 

    Having a presence on the internet is not necessarily bad thing. Luckily for me, most of what can be found about me on the internet is appropriate and places me in a positive light. It would be a nightmare to be on a site that was meant to shame people. I know this does happen to some people. Sometimes information or pictures that were meant to remain private get made public un-voluntarily or against one's will. So the internet can be used to good or for bad and one's presence on the internet can be positive or negative. Another example of negative presence would be mugshots. Many institutions make mugshots public, which seemingly were more for the purpose of public shaming than providing information and news. I suppose connecting humans and increasing communication can be good for people who make good public choices and bad for people who make poor public choices. No one really wants to be in that second category, right? 

    The internet provides an opportunity for people to "leave their mark". We can shape our own legacy and manipulate how we are viewed by the public. We do this by changing up our online presence. The internet provides us all with the chance to put out into the world the things we wish to say--our opinions, rantings, and ravings. We get to share as much as we want to. Whether or not we have an audience may be irrelevant because, at least, no matter who sees it when, it will exist as a seemingly permanent and forever file of that can be accessed at a later time once its searched for. 

    I will likely increase my digital footprint in the future as I still have more life to live and more things to write. I also have more pictures and reviews to post. My internet presence may not be that of a social media star, but at least there will be something of me that remains once I leave this Earth.