Kevin Zheng

In my personal experience, having a common name has been frustrating at times. I’ve always wanted to have a more unique name for myself, but when it comes to online data and privacy, I realize having a common name has its perks. Hi, my name is Kevin Zheng.

Introducing My Name

Some of you may think, “how is ‘Kevin Zheng’ a common name?” Well, this may be simpler to understand if you're of Asian descent—Chinese, specifically. There are two factors to this. First, my last name, ‘Zheng(郑)’, is a popular family name in China. Secondly, Asian families typically tend to choose very common English names for their kids in America where ‘Kevin’ is probably one of the more common names you'll see among Asian Americans. As a result, I am likely one of many 'Kevin Zheng’s that exist.

Let's Google

Now onto my Google search results:

Searching... 'kevin zheng'

Image 1: Google search results for 'kevin zheng'

Since my name is pretty common within the Asian community, the idea beforehand of doing a Google search on my name seemed like an impossible task to try and find myself. To my surprise, doing a Google search on ‘Kevin Zheng’ yielded some interesting results.

The search results weren’t completely accurate in pinpointing information particularly about me as I got a lot of results for a different ‘Kevin Zheng’. The weird thing is that this ‘Kevin Zheng’ I found is another ‘Kevin Zheng’ that went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. So even though Google didn’t pinpoint me, it instead found another person by my name that went to the same university as me. I was shocked.

So was Google tracking my location and somehow knew that I went to the University of Michigan? If so, did Google think that this other ‘Kevin Zheng’ was me? I honestly don’t know but it's a terrifying correlation nonetheless. As I continued to look around, the entire search page was mostly of this other ‘Kevin Zheng’ and his online identity.

Oddly enough, Google still managed to at least return one piece of online information about me from this generic search and that my Twitter account. To no surprise, however, the image results were just as I expected: a bunch of random Asian guys. At this point, I think Google is giving me search results of 'Kevin Zheng' not just blindly but related to the data they've collected from me thus far.

Searching... 'kevinzheng17'

Image 2: Google search images for 'kevin zheng'

Now, I wanted to filter the search even more by doing a Google search on the username that I use for most of my social media accounts to see what I could further find.

This time, the top 3 search results were all social media accounts that belonged to me. The filtered search for ‘kevinzheng17’ instead allowed for Google to easily find my Instagram, Twitter, and even the YouTube channel that I created when I was in elementary school (which is kind of embarrassing but oh well).

Besides finding my social media accounts, another very surprising search result was a link to my friend’s Instagram page. My friend’s name is not even close to mine, but Google still provided his Instagram in the search result nonetheless. Weird. Looking deeper, I found out Google did this because my friend had tagged me in one of his posts (see Image 3). My intuition was that Google must have exhausted its primary searches for ‘kevinzheng17’ and now was looking for any extensions related to ‘kevinzheng17’ which probably pulled in my friend’s Instagram page into the search results. This amazed me as I didn't think that Google had that sort of capability or reach in its search engine.

The remaining search results were again information about other ‘Kevin Zheng’s who were not me. The image results this time also did change, however, but not by much. There were way fewer images being shown in this search with more of the pictures being related to me than the previous search on just my name.

Image 3: Google search results for 'kevinzheng17'

Searching... 'kevin zheng canton michigan'

Image 1: Google search results for 'kevin zheng canton michigan'

And if not that was not specific enough, I decided to do one more final search on my name plus my hometown. This time, the change in search results was immensely different from the previous search results.

Not only did my Twitter and Instagram show up again, but now also my Facebook, LinkedIn, and even my high school swimming profile were now all present. With just one more additional filter, Google revealed a lot more information that was available online about me that I did know existed or thought it might have been difficult to track. Despite most of the search results being information related to me, the image results were still inaccurate with still only my Twitter profile picture being the sole picture of me. I thought that maybe having been the most accurate search result so far, the image results would reflect that was as well but I was wrong.

So Google finally found me. Right when I thought having a common name protected me from my information being available to the public eye, Google has proved me wrong. Still, it took Google a lot of hints to be able to find me so I am not all too concerned. At this point, if you want to find me online, it seems like you’re going to have to actually know me and my background in order to do a thorough and accurate search on me online. I’m okay with this.

Reflections

My Findings

From all these searches, I found that my online identity is not the most accurate representation of my real identity considering how little personal information is available online about me. My online identity currently suggests that I mainly have a social media presence on various platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but that I have no other affiliations and that I belong in no other bubble. Besides some information on my LinkedIn and Facebook, it fails to fully capture some aspects of my personal identity as well as my professional identity. Overall, my online identity mainly reflects the online footprint I made for myself rather than personal factors that more accurately contribute to my real self such as family and my extra-curricular activities, all of which I consider to also be important characteristics that make up my identity.

As a result, I think I’ve done a good job of keeping my personal information private for the most part as I found no information online that particularly disturbed me. The only thing that really bothered me was the fact that a generic Google search of me suggested a different ‘Kevin Zheng’ from the same school and most of his online data identity but not mine.

In Summary

I was fully aware that finding Google search results on myself was going to be a challenge. I first began with a generic search and later into more specific searches through various filtering methods. Despite finding a lot more other ‘Kevin Zheng’s than myself, I learned a lot about how easy it is to access information about somebody through a simple Google search. Before now, I never would have thought that a person’s information, both private and public, would be so easily accessible. I feel like most people share the same thought and perhaps don’t even know that some of their own private information is out there for anyone to look up whenever they want. I certainly did not expect my swimming profile all the way back from high school to show up.

Even though I didn't find too much information online about me to be concerned about, it’s still an awakening thought to realize that I, as well as many others, have little to no control over what information gets posted online to the public about us and in what manner. As stated earlier, I never chose and definitely didn't want my old YouTube account to show up when you Google search my name.

Afterthoughts

After spending a whole day conducting various Google searches on myself, I came to the realization that my online identity did not fully portray an authentic version of myself. Is that a bad thing, though? I did end up finding some accurate information about myself, but that was only after an extensive and filtered down search of myself. It does disappoint me, however, that my online identity paints me as an individual with not much influence on the world. That's expected though given my place within the world and my name being pretty common.

Since there are so many people with my name, it is expected that only very specific searches like my name with my hometown can give both in-depth and valid search results about me and my identity. Other than that, it’s very generalized. Overall, I would conclude that my online identity provided mostly information about my social life with very little about my academic and personal life as a college student. As a student at the University of Michigan, academics have always been a crucial part of my life as well as family, friends, hobbies, and other extracurricular activities that make up my actual identity.