User:Jaydayal
Who am I? This is a question that I truly don’t know the answer to. It’s a question that can be answered in many ways. It’s a question that really has no right answer. While I have no definite answer to this question, I hoped that Google or Bing would be able to answer this question for me. But no. Even the place that seemingly has every piece of information that anyone could ever need to know couldn’t answer this very simple question. But maybe that is exactly who I am. A private person. A person that limits the circle of people who know personal details of himself. I think this might just be the right answer to the question, “Who am I”.
Who Am I?
When I talk about myself as a private person, I don’t mean a person who has no friends or likes to be alone. I am talking about a person who doesn’t use social media to post about everything I do on a daily basis on social media. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I posted anything on Instagram or Snapchat. I have only one post on Instagram and zero on Facebook. I use these platforms as a way to connect with friends and to entertain myself. While I don’t post anything myself, I enjoy looking at my friends’ posts and seeing what they are doing. In fact, it amazes me how much I know about other people just by looking at their Instagram page. Furthermore, it is a way to keep up with the news. You would be surprised how much more informative scrolling through Twitter can be than reading news apps such as CNN or The Wall Street Journal. When one of my favorite athletes, Kobe Bryant, died in a tragic helicopter, I found out through Twitter. The constant tweeting at any given moment makes it easy to know exactly what is going on in our world.
I think one of the reasons that I don’t post much on social media is because I grew up during a time when most parents were strict about children using Facebook. I remember growing up, my parents would not let me use Facebook until I was in high school. The same was true for most of my friends. In fact, my dad would always tell me that you should always lie about your birthday on any website that requires one. He emphasized that information like that should not be available to people you don’t know. When I created my Snapchat account, I put a fake birthday because I was taking my dad’s advice. At the time I had no idea that when it is your birthday, your friends on Snapchat can see that it’s your birthday and wish you. This is why on a random day; I had many people wish me happy birthday even though it wasn’t even my birthday. Nowadays, students in as young as 11 years old can be found on Facebook or Instagram with a lot of their private information available on their page. Times have changed dramatically, and people are less concerned about protecting their private information.
What comes up on Google?
If you type my name into the Google search engine, the first page that comes up that relates to me is my LinkedIn page. This page is where I network with people and build my professional portfolio. It allows me to connect with people with similar career interests and to look for open job positions. While this page does have a lot of personal information including where I go to school and where I live, it is not a place that I am particularly worried about posting this type of information. In fact, this page requires some of your personal information since it is where you can network to get a job or promote your business. On Google Images, there is only one picture of me which is my Twitter profile picture. For a lot of other people, simply typing their name in Google will produce more results than mine. However, these people are far more active on social media than I am and therefore have more information about themselves out there.
It takes a more specific Google search to find any information regarding me that I myself have not posted anywhere. Typing in my name followed by my hometown yields far more results and gives some background of who I am. One of the first websites that comes up is a page that has personal published information on people who have lived at the address that I live at and some of my relatives such as my grandparents and my aunt and uncles. Also, if you look on Google Images, there are many pictures of things that my school districted has posted over the years that contains my name. An example includes the newsletter that was published after I graduated High School. This newsletter listed the names and pictures of everyone in my class who was part of the top cohort. This reveals the school district I attended as well as that I am a smart student who got good grades in high school. However, I have no control over this information getting out because I don’t run my school’s page.
There are some pictures of people that I follow on various social media pages that can be seen by looking me up on Google. For example, when you search up my name, a post on LinkedIn that I liked pops up. A person who does not know me would probably not realize that I am connected with that person on LinkedIn at first glance but if they were smart enough they would make the connection. While I am capable of controlling who I am connected with on social media, I have little control over what they post. There are a lot of people I am connected with that post a lot on Facebook or tweet a lot on Twitter that are likely to have more information about themselves out there. The people that I am connected to on social media is another type of information that is available on the internet.
What pops up when you search me on Google
Picture of me from Google Images
Even data brokers such as BeenVerified and Instant Checkmate have no information about me. Data brokers collect information on individuals from public records and private sources and then sell it. They typically have some information on most people such as date of birth, address, etc. The older you are, the more information they are likely to have including your employment history. I have no doubt that if I was more active on social media, data brokers would have more information about me. Another reason why these data brokers have no information about me is because I have never had a job nor have I ever been in the news. Another reason why there is not much information about me is that lot of people my age have been in the news for athletic or academic achievements, but I have never accomplished anything on that level.
Conclusion
I have never really known how to describe myself. But I think describing myself as a private person is an accurate way to do so because in a world where there is so much information about anything, it is hard to keep somethings to yourself. In fact, I am surprised by the lack of information out there about me. I assumed that there would have been people who found a way to access personal files of people who aren’t that active on social media or aren’t old enough to have an employment history. I guess this means that I have done a good job accomplishing my goal of keeping personal details off the internet.
