Monday, November 7, 2016

Listen to your mother!

Ever since I was little my mom would say, "Never get a tattoo, it stays with you forever!" I laugh at that now because real body tattoos are the least of my concerns for my own children.  With their digital worlds constantly updating on Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus, SnapChat, and various other social media sites, their tattoos are already rather large.

I came across this video on YouTube that I found interesting. It is a TED talk by Juan Enriquez called Your online life, permanent as a tattoo. I thought I would share the video on my blog and with my children.  :)  



https://youtu.be/Fu1C-oBdsMM

Looking back, I know I did things as a teenager that I wouldn't want people to know about today.  Our teenage moments weren't recorded and are long gone, except in the memories of a few friends.  Unfortunately, many teenager's moments are recorded daily, by them, by their friends, and even their family, sometimes even before birth.  This digital tattoo will stay with them forever and those embarrassing moments, we were able to hide, may be seen by college recruiters and future employers.

This weekend, I worked on investigating a stranger. This assignment was for the Technology class I am taking at Dominican University. I found the digital investigation project to be amazing! I couldn't believe how much information I found on my stranger. I determined the whole process was a little creepy and I was completely sucked in! The poor stranger had no idea I was digging up everything about her life. Now I know her parents, her husband, child, dog, siblings, where she lives, where she works, her phone numbers and how much she makes a year. While I didn't find information about her on most of her sites, I was able to find more about her from her husband's Twitter account and other family member's social media. The whole process brought to light, that no matter how safe you are, you still have others posting about you, and if someone wanted to get your information...they can.

I definitely feel that knowledge is power in the digital world.  Digital citizenship and digital tattoos should be taught and discussed at every age.  In first grade we talk about what we post on our Seesaw accounts.  I believe we need to start young since the digital world surrounds everyone from a very young age.

As for my digital stranger, she has a very positive digital tattoo. I decided to follow her on Twitter. She is a wealth of information regarding technology and I felt I could learn from her. 

5 comments:

  1. Good idea to follow the tech person on Twitter that you data mined!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing that video! I too had a similar reaction to all of the information that is public on the internet. Children definitely need to be taught about their digital footprint.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also worry about people posting about me... although I'm very private online, my mom sure isn't! You can't always control what's out there, and that's a little unnerving at times.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the title of your post! Another outstanding reflection. It comforts me to know that you are addressing online presence as young as first grade. Imagine the digital citizens your students would become if every teacher every year also had this discussion.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, sad to say that a physical tattoo is the least of our worries!

    ReplyDelete