Managing Internet Identity

Whenever I get bored with facebook, get tired of watching videos in youtube and seem to run out of things to do with the internet, I “Google” people’s names. However, I only thought of trying to Google myself last July. I expected most of the entries which appeared: Facebook of course, LAE results, student lists of the schools I attended and the likes. However, to my surprise, blog entries I wrote decades ago which I thought were not publicly posted, were among the search results..

Most blog entries were just fine, just the typical diary-like entries which were not that confidential and were safe to be viewed by the public. There were however some which were slightly incriminating, owing to some unpleasant languages which I can’t believe I really wrote way back then. I realized that there was one period in my life when I was so enthusiastic to blog – and I recalled that it was when I had the lowest point in my life. I blogged when I badly needed to rant about something, I blogged when I was super depressed and down. I also wrote a blog saying I was super happy, but when I try to remember that very day at present, I don’t think I was really that happy. And so those entries were so emotional and personal, I didn’t even care if it might be offensive to others, or if it might create a bad impression about me.

And so just to keep my internet “image” not really pristine but as neutral as it could be, I deleted some blogs and just saved a few in my computer for my personal viewing when I feel like reminiscing. For some which were not incriminating, I just edited the settings (way back then I didn’t know how to, because what I did was just to type anything then post. And perhaps because I didn’t have so much time to surf the internet back then because DSL connection was rare and expensive.)

Nowadays, the importance of managing one’s identity in the internet is important because internet use is so widespread that a considerable number of people will most likely see what has been posted in the net. Before, I don’t seem to care about posting anything on the internet thinking that other people would not bother to read it or even look at it. At present, the situation is very different. Post something on the net, especially on facebook, rest assured people will know about it. Unless posted anonymously or using a bogus account, what you post will be attributed to you. Bad thing is, on the internet, you are what you post. Hence, posts should be more sensitive and well thought of. Otherwise, you ruin yourself on the net, which is close to making a mess on a live television broadcast.

---Gen S. (11)