Rahil Patel
I keep hearing over and over again not to believe everything I hear or see, especially on the Internet. My family, friends, and even mentors constantly tell me that not everything on the Internet is real, social media is a fake representation of people’s real lives, and to find the truth one must dig deeper than surface level information found on the Internet. But is it true that most of the information or miscellaneous things that I find on the Internet are not credible? In this enlightening data identity assignment, I was left with some interesting takeaways about the differences between my true self and the person the Internet portrays me to be. There were definitely some things about me that are completely true and accurately depict who I am as a person, but the complete picture of who I am was not entirely depicted. There were definitely many aspects of who I am in real life that you would not be able to find by just searching me on the Internet.
Results from a Simple Google Search
After an initial quick google search of my name, I knew that identifying the Internet’s depiction of me would be more difficult than I had initially thought. The main challenge with this process was a result of my last name being “Patel”. There are upwards of five million Patel’s in the world, as it is one of the most common last names for people of Indian origin. My first name, “Rahil”, is also a relatively common first name for people of Indian origin. As a result, when I searched my name into google, I had a very difficult time identifying pieces of digital information that pertained to me instead of the many other Rahil Patel’s that existed in the world. In order to combat this issue, I not only had to search my name, Rahil Patel, but I also had to add a short keyword to the end of my name so that information that pertained to me would appear rather than information about a different Rahil Patel. After employing this strategy, I was able to find better results. The three main categories of keywords that I tried were golf, Michigan, and social media. These are the three areas where I have the greatest digital footprint and the most information is available about me.
Golf
When searching my name in google paired with the keyword golf, I noticed a disparity in the amount of information available between my three different competitive golf involvements. There was an abundance of information about my involvement with the Philadelphia Junior Tour and varsity high school golf team, but virtually no information about my involvement with the University of Michigan Club Golf Team. Overall, I was honestly surprised with how much information was available about myself in relation to golf. More specifically, there was information about every tournament I have ever played in on the Philadelphia Junior Tour, which is upwards of fifty tournaments. From past scores to standings to awards won, I was surprised that all of this information was published and available to anyone in the world with Internet connection. Similarly, there was an abundance of information available about me regarding my involvement with my high school varsity team. More specifically, there was information about team rosters, scores, standings, various articles, past tournaments, and awards won all published on the Internet and available to anyone interested. It was nostalgic to go back and reflect on such great memories that I had competing in high school golf many years ago.
Although there was much information about my golf history as it related to the Philadelphia Junior Tour and my high school varsity team, the Internet was missing a key piece, my involvement with the University of Michigan Club Golf Team. There was almost no information about me on this team other than the fact that I was on the roster. Furthermore, there were no scores, articles, or team news about me on this team. My guess for this is because the team was formed more for recreational purposes and meeting new people than hardcore competition. Either way, if someone were to look my name up on the Internet as it pertains to golf, they would be able to see a lot of detailed information about my prior experiences in middle school and high school, but there would be a gap for college even though I was still involved with the sport.
Michigan
After searching my name with the keyword “Michigan” next to it, I was fairly surprised with the results, or lack thereof. As a student of the University of Michigan who has been here for four years and involved in a multitude of extracurricular activities, there was a lack of information about me and my involvement at the University. From my involvement in various clubs such as Alliance Consulting Group and Michigan Business Club, I was surprised by the lack of information available on the Internet. However, there was one major hit that did come up during this search, my LinkedIn profile. Although all of my individual involvements did not appear in the search, the fact that my LinkedIn profile came up made up for this because my profile on this site summarized all of my academic and extracurricular involvements that were not openly portrayed on the Internet. People who searched me on the Internet would actually be able to learn a lot about me from reviewing my LinkedIn profile, which is intentional because I want recruiters and people in the professional domain to understand my background in order to help me advance my career. More specifically, there in information about my academic interests (major, minor, relevant coursework, and GPA), athletic involvement with golf, extracurricular involvement with on campus clubs, and professional experiences with past internships and jobs. Anyone with a LinkedIn account can access this relevant information about my past on paper, but it does not paint the entire picture of who I am. People will not be able to learn about my personality, hobbies, and personal life outside of academics and professional experiences. This is exactly why companies interview candidates for a job rather than solely looking at resumes and cover letters. They want to learn more about each individual candidate’s personality and interests beyond what is written on paper. This same principle can be applied to my digital identity on the Internet.
Social Media
The last set of relevant keywords that I paired with my name was different social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Compared to the average person my age, I am much less active on social media. This was directly reflected in the results that came up when my name was searched in Google. For Instagram and Twitter, both of my accounts are private, meaning that in order to view the content on my profile, you would have to be following my account. Since I only have about 500 followers on each account, the number of people who have access to my posts are very limited. Even if someone was following me, they would not be able to gain much insight as to who I am as a person simply because I do not post all that often. On twitter specifically, I mainly just tweet and retweet content related to my favorite sports teams, the Michigan Wolverines basketball and football teams in addition to the Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia 76ers. Other than that, there is very little personal information available about me on social media. As a result, someone could find accurate information about me online, but the information will be very limited and will portray only a fraction of the person I am.
