I Can Just Google Your Name

 I Can Just Google Your Name

When I first started to get on the internet, I remember everyone; my parents, teachers, and friends would say whatever you put out there on the internet, is there to stay. Everyone can see it. This was a scary thought when I first started to apply to colleges and later jobs because I have been using the internet for years. I never really knew what was on there about me. Now, when I did google my name, nothing was terrible it was more so pictures that I would be tagged in on Facebook or that I posted. It still made me extremely worried when I was applying for jobs because I wanted to make the best impression of myself before they made a decision about me. I knew that they were going to look me up. Now, I have students who want to know personal information about myself or my family that I am not comfortable with sharing and my first graders will say "don't worry, I''ll just google you." It makes me laugh every time just because that is something I would say too but I am twenty-eight and they are six. 

Image Source: Next Avenue 

Digital Tattoo

This week, we researched our own digital tattoo. Like a tattoo, a digital tattoo is technology permanent meaning what is on the internet cannot always go away. Yes, just like a tattoo there are many ways around getting it removed, however, you never know who got their hands on it before you were able to remove it. For this assignment, we were given many different websites to search our names. Since, I have googled my name in the past, I thought I knew everything that was out there on the internet, however, using the different sites I have found more. Below are three sites that used to look up the digital information that is linked to my name. 

Research

Google:

I wanted to start out with going back and googling my name to see what has stayed the same and what has changed. I started out with putting "Lindsey McDill" to get a more accurate search. There were 33,400 results. The first result was my school district, and my account linked to my computer. This is why that showed up. The second two were a LinkedIn account which I do not use and a white page. The other few results on the first page were a Facebook account that is not mine and another white page that was for someone else named Lindsey McDill because it had their age. I also looked up images for my name which has no pictures of me, which changed from the last time I looked up my name there was a picture that I posted a couple years ago to a Weebly account. I decided to log out of my account which I was noted to do before completing this assignment, but I wanted to compare the two. 

Image Source: Google Logged into Account 

Image Source: Google Images Logged into Account 

When I logged out of my account, I received the same results besides my school information. I am completely shocked by this as I assumed there would be a different result. After I googled, I went onto Safari instead of Microsoft Edge, and found that it has comparable results, and it does contain my picture that I thought was on Google (the first picture, the second is another Lindsey).  It also showed my father's book that he wrote that notes my name which also contains the town we live in, my grandfather's obituary and my Weebly account that I made in college.  These searches were a little different from each other. Below are the pictures that represent that. 

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill 

As I was searching, I remembered that most of my accounts are named Lindsey Heather (my middle name), so it is harder for others to find me especially since I am a teacher. Again, I was shocked that you cannot find any of my social media accounts even if you go to the next couple of pages. All that representing me was White Pages for my dad and me. After researching, I released I did a very good job of hiding my social accounts and any information that could possibly be used in a negative way on Google/Microsoft Edge. 

Image Source: Microsoft Bing 

Instant Checkmate:

Image Source: Instant Checkmate

 

Instant Checkmate is a website that looks up people's public service records. At the start, it asks you to type in your first name, last name, where you are city, and state you are located in or where you were located. It also asks you to check whether you are looking up yourselves information or if you are looking up someone else. When I did this, they then ask you whether you are related to certain people and the range of age you are. This website was able to pull my age, two locations where I have lived, and most of my family members. It, however, did not pull up my sister's name which I am very curious about. I am surprised that it did not note that I have lived in Columbia, Missouri as I lived there for four years during college. I am thinking maybe if I change the state to Missouri, it might catch that. 

During my searching, I found other websites that also looks up people's public service record. I wanted to compare Instant Checkmate to Nuwber. Nuwber allows you to search using your name, address, phone number, and email. I searched using all three options. The only two that came to correct information was searching using my name and my address. The image below was what came up when I searched my name. It even found my middle name, which Instant Checkmate just had an H. It also showed my sister's name as a relative instead of my younger brother Kyle and Dad, Kent. 

Image Source: Nuwber

Image Source: Nuwber

Above is the image I was able to capture of the results when putting in my address. This one pulled up a lot of new information. It mentions all my families ages, date of birth, phone numbers, education, length of residency, marital status, and gender. This was the only website that gave this much information. I wish the full background report was free as I am sure there is a lot more information available

Social Media Pages: 

When I searched on Facebook for my name, I did not come up so again, I searched for Lindsey Heather and still nothing. I am very happy that I am a little unfindable. I do have students who say that I was looking you up on my computer, so this is relieving. 

I kept going with the social media pages and looked up my Instagram account. My Instagram name is Lindsey_Not_Lohan. It does come up if you type in my complete username, but it does not show if you type in Lindsey McDill or Lindsey Heather. Someone would need to know that my username is as above in order to see my account. 

Finally, I wanted to see what would come up for my TikTok account. Again, the name is Lindsey Heather. Once again, my account was not a result. 

Image source: Facebook

Image Source 3x: Instagram

Thoughts? 

I am so happy that I have done a great job with keeping my results to a minimum. As I mentioned before, I have researched myself and more accurate results were found of me like my high school cross country records or my soccer teams stats. I must have aged out of those records. I was extremely content with what comes up when you search for me. I always fear that something terrible is going to be attached to my name but that is just because of the adults warning me when I was younger that what is on the internet is never truly erased. I do believe that students should learn this skill about the internet, but I don't think it is the school's responsibility until they are at least at the intermediate level. If parents are allowing their students to have access to the digital world at a younger age, it should be on them to explain the cautions of posting. When it is the school's job, I believe teachers and social workers should come up with a presentation that displays a positive digital tattoo versus a negative tattoo. They could even bring in someone that deals with hiring and share their thoughts. 

Video Source: YouTube

Citations: 

Enriquez, J. (n.d.). Your online life, permanent as a tattoo [Video]. TED Talks.

P. Joyce, S. (n.d.). Why it is Vital that you Google Yourself? Next Avenue.

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