As someone that
has grown up in a mostly digital age, I consider technology to be an important
and useful part of my every day life. Marc Prensky, in his article “Digital
Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1”, would refer to me as a Digital Native,
someone that has grown and learned with technology for all of or the majority
of their life. According to Prensky, Digital Natives are “native speakers of
the digital language of computer, video games and the Internet”.
As a result of technology being such a large part of my life, I would consider
myself to leave a fairly large digital footprint. This means that, similar to
real life footprints, I leave behind traces of where I have been within this
digital world.
The reason I
believe I leave a fairly large digital footprint is because I have a hand in
many, many things across technology. I use various social media outlets
including, twitter, Facebook, instagram, as well as this blog. Along with
social media, I also use sites and apps like pinterest, vine, YouTube and
Bloglovin to observe and share things that interest me. Through these various
digital outlets I perform daily activities that have become part of my daily
routine. I believe the constant flow of content that is shared and consumed by
myself is what creates my digital footprint. Now, if my digital footprint
depended on how influential I was in the digital world, it would be a much
smaller footprint, but I believe it has more to do with how involved you are in
what you do online.
This involvement
online creates an online identity, which is part of this digital footprint that
is left by your activity online, it is a collection of information based on
what you share and consume on the Internet. To get a better idea of what your
online identity is you can do what we did in my Digital Society class and
Google yourself, see what comes up. Is it what you expected? Were you happy
with what you saw? Through the Shakespeare quotation, “All the world’s a
stage”, Bernie Hogan discusses the idea of social media giving people a view of
the “backstage” of our lives. Hogan also
points out the fact that “Some people very carefully select which tastes to
show”, and through this selective sharing you create an ideal identity. You may
have a completely different identity in real life than what your Facebook
suggests, based on what sorts of information you choose to share. I myself am
quite selective about what I choose to post on my varying pages and sites.
Depending on what site I’m using or who my audience is, I choose to divulge
different information. I am generally careful about what I post on major social
media because of the effect that information may have in the future. We all
know that prospective employers like to take a peek at our Facebook before
hiring, so maybe keep the compromising Facebook photos to a minimum.
Going along with
the idea of being selective of what you share via social media, or online in
general, privacy is a huge topic of concern when discussing the digital world. Most
people like to keep certain aspects of their lives private from followers,
viewers, friends, or whoever can see your profiles. There is the social side of
privacy, not wanting to share certain information, not feeling comfortable
sharing certain aspects of your self with all 700 of your friends on Facebook
or twitter. But there is also this fear of “Big Brother” and their surveillance of our online
activities, as Palen and Dourish discuss in their article. In such a digital
society it is common knowledge that information that we put out into the
digital world is picked up by companies and organizations to benefit them in
some way, whether it be personalized advertisements so we are more likely to
purchase their product, or some sort of ownership over content that we send out
(as it says in Facebook’s new terms and conditions). An important part about
being part of the digital society is knowing the risks and concerns that come
with this territory.
All
in all I believe that I am a digital native, and that I am digitally literate,
for the most part. I use the Internet and technology in many things I do and
have learned to use them effectively for both personal and educational or
professional reasons.
A Digital Native in her Natural Habitat
Resources:
Facebook Terms and Conditions.
Hogan, Bernie. "The Presentation of Self in
the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions
Online." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30.6 (2010):
377-86. Web.
Palen, Leysia, and Paul Dourish. "Unpackin
"Privacy" for a Networked World." Proceedings of the
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2003)
Prensky, Marc. "Digital Natives, Digital
Immigrants Part 1." On the Horizon 9.5 (2001): 1-6.
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