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| − | ==<b> Who is David Song? </b> ==
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| − | Growing up as a kid from Indiana, I always thought my name was pretty cool. For the non-religious, it’s a biblical reference to a Hebrew king famous for defeating Goliath, the classic underdog narrative. It wasn’t until I became more involved in Asian American culture that I realized my name was extremely common among Asian Americans. In fact, even while narrowing my scope to the University of Michigan, I am one of five David Songs. And so, as I wistfully accepted the notion that I belong to a larger collective, I began my search for digital identity on the world’s most used search engine: Google.
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| − | === <big>'''Google'''</big> ===
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| − | [[File:Wiki.png|thumbnail|right|My information on VoterRecords.com]]
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| − | As expected, I immediately observed that search results of my name were inundated with countless other David Songs, all of whom were far more successful than me. Their occupations clearly affected the searching algorithm, for instance, doctors gained noticeably more traffic than others. But twenty pages later and I was still nowhere close to finding a fragment of my online identity. Slowly, the results morphed into other famous Davids with the word ‘song’ somewhere included. David Bowie became a particular nemesis of mine during my search. It seems that the amount of people shown is limited in quantity and after some implicit number, Google will eventually assume you meant something else. I soon managed to reach the final page of results still finding nothing related to me. Interestingly, Google mentioned omitting some results, so with a spark of hope, I reran the query once again. This time, I decided to also include my middle name as well and finally, I obtained results. Using my full legal name returned a mysterious website registered as VoterRecords.com. This record of mine had my date of birth, current home address, date of registration, and voter ID. Frankly, I was spooked. Of course without my middle name, which I’ve told few, it would be extremely difficult to locate this webpage. But learning that someone’s address could be doxxed just for voting, was discomforting. What concerned me even further was seeing my parents and neighbors’ information being recommended too. My likely theory is that by voting and fulfilling my civic duty in America, I had unintentionally created a trail of digital breadcrumbs to follow.
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| − | === <big>'''Facebook'''</big> ===
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| − | [[File:Wiki2.png|thumbnail|right|Some of the many David Songs on Facebook]]
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| − | I decided to explore Facebook next because it hosts my only social media profile. Starting very similarly to Google, I scrolled through thousands upon thousands of David Songs. By now, I had grown sick of seeing my own name on the screen, but I persisted in searching. There’s a reported phenomenon experienced by astronauts upon newly observing our planet from outer space, it’s known as the overview effect. Observing the fragility of Earth from afar apparently invokes profound feelings of protectiveness and an urge for global unification within the viewer. While passing by countless other David Songs, I found myself experiencing a smaller overview effect of my own. By traversing through so many of Facebook’s accounts, I momentarily grasped the sheer vastness of our global interconnected network. The number of people concurrently using a worldwide online service while accessing unimaginable amounts of data with ease is truly both mind-boggling and awe-inspiring.
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| − | With too much time invested in searching, I finally surrendered and opened my public Facebook profile. At first glance, it’s obvious that I’m either not a frequent user of Facebook or I don’t update my profile regularly. My current profile picture promotes a school event that happened over a year ago. The last photo containing my face was posted in 2018 and I’ve only posted three in total that actually show myself. The content of my profile pictures range from a random illustration of a Magikarp, a relic of juvenile humor, to cringe-worthy filters supporting Star Wars and Paris after the 2015 terrorist attacks. I also have things I’ve “liked” visible on my profile, most are school-related and some are of games like League of Legends. In terms of other personal information given, my gender is the final. Putting it all together, my Facebook profile is stereotypical of the socially aloof gamer, however, it doesn’t accurately illustrate my current identity. I no longer play video games as often anymore and appearance-wise I’m significantly different from myself back in 2018.
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| − | === <big>'''Reflections'''</big> ===
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| − | Outside of Facebook, I have no social media presence whatsoever. It’s a fair assessment to make that outside of my advertising data and random voting records, I don’t have a digital identity. In many instances, I’ve debated making some type of social media profile and committing to using it frequently. Yet this was never actualized for several reasons. Starting in 2015, I primarily began using Reddit to interact with online communities, these typically revolved around depending on what games I played. The friends I surrounded myself with also used social media minimally. Rather than socializing with my peers on social media, video games became an alternative replacement for building a network. I formed many of my highschool friendships through gaming which inadvertently contributed to my nonexistent adaptation of social media. By finding online alternatives and staying active in after-school extracurriculars, I was able to circumvent the need of having an online presence to stay connected. As time passed, I observed an increasing number of people creating accounts and sharing their identities while I continued resisting. The initial pushback arguments of privacy and mental health concerns I raised were rational but looking back, I suspect that my ego was merely protecting itself. Perhaps as social media use normalized over time, I disliked admitting I didn’t have one and conjured more justifications. It became easier and easier to ignore social media because the longer I waited, the more justified my initial cause, right? Ironically enough, waiting worsened the impending anxiety behind not having any social media. My worries culminated during my first year of college when my roommate admitted to thinking less of me at first for “not having an Instagram account.” A blunt reminder that my journey of online identity wasn’t the societal norm.
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| − | === <big>'''Concluding Thoughts'''</big> ===
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| − | Today, although some doubts resurface occasionally, I’m ultimately content living without social media. The online representation of my identity through social media isn’t fully accurate but I certainly don’t lack one outside of the Internet. Growing up, I’ve always enjoyed asserting and maintaining my individualism. This tendency manifests itself in my music taste and obviously in defending my lack of social media usage as well. Though it wasn’t my original intent to not have a well-defined digital identity, it’s become part of my actual identity. That doesn’t mean you can characterize me as someone intentionally refusing to interact with society, but the legitimacy of that claim itself reflects the extent of how pivotal digital identities have become to our daily lives. The shifting standards for how people should be identified in society has real consequences for those that don’t conform, which I witnessed firsthand in college. More worrying is the existence of those who cannot integrate their digital identities but are willing to do so. Foreigners, inexperienced Internet users, and the elderly are just some examples of the many potentially left behind. Ultimately, representing one’s identity is fundamental to the human experience and while digital mediums can be of use, they should never fully replace nor require it.
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