Difference between revisions of "Calvin Kerns"

Revision as of 16:32, 19 February 2021

My Online Date Identity: Speculations

Before diving headfirst into the search process, I just want to hypothesize about what I expect to learn from myself. I do admittingly expect to find very minimal information about me online as I have deliberately avoided putting such information out on the web on the first place. Aside from some social media accounts that I manage that I have my real name attached too, I usually browse the internet with pseudonymous email and name to best avoid having my activities connect to the real me. Of course, I know from searches on me in the past that there is some information about me online that was posted by others that was outside of my direct control, so I know that there is some degree of information about me out there. All things consider, I postulate that my online public data identity will do a poor job at actually encapsulating the characteristics of who I am, and thus, is a misrepresentation of who I actually am outside of the web.

Information found via Search Engines

Google Search

I am fourth on the list of users with names "Calvin Kerns" on Facebook.

The first page of results for the query “Calvin Kerns” on Google is heavily dominated by links related to an MMA wrestler named “Calvin Kerns.” In case it’s not immediately clear, let me just say that this is not me. There was a link to Facebook though that contained a list of users named “Calvin Kerns,” but none of the links on the first Google results page directly linked to my Facebook profile. I was able to sift through the user list on Facebook though to find the specific links to my profile (I was the 4th result on a list of 16 people whose names explicitly contained “Calvin Kerns”). I will discuss in more detail what my Facebook profile reveals about me later on.

I also did find a link to my LinkedIn profile on the first page of results (I’ll discuss this more later on too). On the second page of results, I did find some more links that pertained to me. For instance, I found a link to an article about a scholarship I received for a medical summer camp I participated in (I’ll speak about this later on) and saw many links to the Medium blog posts and comments I wrote for this very class. The third page of results contained no information about me, however.

Google Images

This is an image of me found next to a quote I made advocating for the University of Michigan program, the "Douglass Houghton Scholars Program"

Under the Images tab for a Google search query of “Calvin Kerns,” I actually see two images of me pop up near the top of list.

Following the link of the first image will take a viewer to an online article talking about a scholarship I received as a Junior in high school in 2017 to attend a medical summer camp called OsteoChamps at Michigan State University (Egads! I was associated with MSU?! Yes, I was. Believe it or not, the school is not evil incarnate on Earth as some others may have you think it’d be; it’s actually a pretty nice school, but I digress). This is the same article I mentioned earlier. Following the link attached to the second image will take a viewer to a page with a list of quotes advocating for a University of Michigan program called the Douglass Houghton Scholars Program (DHSP, for short). I was in this program as a U of M freshman from the fall of 2018 to the spring of 2019, which is when I wrote this quote to advocate for the program to prospective U of M students.

The two images near the upper-left corner are of me.

This is an image of me receiving my scholarship to attend a summer medical camp at Michigan State University.

Validity

These images and corresponding linked websites do portray factual information about me: I did in fact receive a scholarship to a summer medical camp that I did attend and I did in fact also participate in DHSP. However, there is a line from the medical camp article that reads as follows: “Calvin has an interest in becoming a pharmacist and is looking for the OsteoCHAMPS program to enhance his medical skill set and elevate his overall knowledge of the medical field.” While this was true at the time, it definitely is far from it now as I am studying Computer Science and User Experience. Fortunately, on the DHSP quote page, I do have Computer Science and User Experience listed as my majors, which is the up-to-date, accurate case. However, if someone just read the article about my summer camp scholarship, they’d likely form the impression that I went on to study pharmaceutical sciences in college, which of course is a misrepresentation of my situation now.

Portrayal in Social Media

Facebook

This is my Facebook Profile from a public perspective

My Facebook profile actually contains a sparse amount of public information about me as I’ve provided the minimal amount of details necessary to create the account (I made it mainly to use the Messenger mobile app the Facebook operates). All that a public viewer can see is my current profile picture and three of my previous profile pictures.

LinkedIn

This is my LinkedIn profile from a public perspective

As mentioned earlier, a Google search linked to my LinkedIn profile where an arbitrary viewer could see at a minimum that I study Computer Science and User Experience at the University of Michigan.

Validity

My Facebook account does contain legitimate photos of me from high school and college, but not much else. Of somewhat significance, my Facebook profile is the only online resource that has images of me with a mustache and beard, which are much more accurate to me now than the images of me with a clean-shaven face. My LinkedIn profile does also provide some of my educational information, which is also accurate, yet extremely minimal.

Portrayal via Data Brokers

Truthfinder

Superficial details on "Calvin Kerns" provided by TruthFinder.

This data broker seemed like a promising instrument to exploit to easily gather all relevant information on me online. However, the process to use the tool was unnecessarily cumbersome with its seemingly endless number of buttons that read along the lines of “Click here to open the report on Calvin Kerns” that only took me to another page with the same button. At the end of the long-winded clicking journey, the website ultimately took me to a page that listed some different pricing options to view the report, with the minimum priced one costing 23 dollars, and asked for my credit card information. At that point, I wasn’t willing to divulge that financial information to the site, so I decided to forgo my journey with this website.

I am the 14th result on the list of people named "Calvin Kerns" on Truthfinder

Much to my surprise, when I first searched for “Calvin Kerns,” there were many results returned for others named “Calvin Kerns” across the United States: 30 such records to be exact. (I had no idea that there were so many “Calvin Kerns” out there!) My entry on the results page was not the first, nor the second, nor even the third result. The entry corresponding to me was the 14th one to appear on the search results page. I’m not sure how exactly Truthfinder decides its result ranking algorithm, but if results are ranked according to the amount of available information for each entry (with those with more information available ranking higher), then my position lower on the list would seem to conform with my claim that my online profile is quite limited.

Validity

Despite not ultimately viewing the report, my experience with using Truthfinder wasn’t totally fruitless. The image included nearby shows the superficial details of the information that the website had of me. This information is all factual: My middle initial is indeed S, my age is 21, I live in Fremont, MI, and I am related to Edward Kerns (my father) and Kamelia Kerns (my mother). Interestingly, I see no information connecting me to any of my two brothers

My Online Data Profile: Actuality

Comprehensive Portrayal

Synthesizing all discussed information, my online data identity can be summarized as the following: I am Calvin S. Kerns, am 21 years old, live in Fremont, MI, am fathered by Edward Kerns and mothered by Kamelia Kerns, attend the University of Michigan studying Computer Science and User Experience, participated in a University Program that I would end up advocating for in a quote, received a scholarship to attend a summer camp at Michigan State University, wrote some articles for a class called SI 410, at one point considered becoming a pharmacist, and have had both a clean-shaven face and a beard.

Reality

All of the above details are indeed factual: there is no falsehood among the provided information. However, the provided information misrepresents in the sense that it provides a scarcity of information about me that extends beyond basic identifying details. For instance, virtually nothing can be said about my personality, my activities, my hobbies, my broader social network, my life events, etc. The information publicly available about me online reveals just as much about me that something superficial like an image of me reveals about my actual character. My initial hypothesis regarding how little information about me I would be able to find online seems to have been largely corroborated by my research and findings.