I was quite surprised to find that when I went online and googled myself, I did not exist! Even on several search engines, and after many pages of looking, I could not find a trace. Except, at the bottom of a second page in chrome, I found a picture that had been posted by my employer when I took on a new position.<\/p>\n
The first search that came up was for Facebook profiles with my name on them. There were 100 selections of people with my name (or variations thereof), but mine was not included. In other searches there were real estate agents, ministers, writers, and even a famous ballerina. On the sad side, there was an obituary for a\u00a0 77yr old woman who was married to a man who had the same name as my son! In the United States there were 79 people with my name found across 37 states. It even had google street view of some of their homes. Scary.<\/p>\n
I guess I have done a good job of creating an invisible digital identity. Or is that what I want\/need? This course is challenging my thinking on that. I try to be very careful how much I do or post online for privacy reasons, and lately when it has come to social media, I am finding very little value in it, therefore my posts are becoming fewer and farther between. To this end, Kris Shaeffer’s description of “aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise<\/em>” really resonated with me. Over the past year or so, I have felt very private when it comes to social media, and I see now that I have been on a quest of my own to become a digital minimalist. I only have time for digital tools that serve a purpose. Everything else is just digital noise, and it seems like it can be a cacophony when trying to keep up with all the posts and “news” in a feed”.<\/p>\n However, after reading Kris’ article, I am challenged with the intentionality needed to curate a personal digital profile. Although I was pleased that I couldn’t find myself, I was also disappointed that none of my accomplishments were actually highlighted and the wider world couldn’t get a glimpse into who I really am. It re-affirms to me some strange, misplaced feeling when I have created things online, or tried a new social media platform – that no one is really listening. When I post, I wonder – is anyone even there? I struggle with this, because on one hand I don’t want to be found. On the other, I want others to see the good and I want to participate in wider society, which is mostly now found online. Kris challenged me to be more intentional and take more risks with my online presence.<\/p>\n Regarding Bonnie’s 6 Selves – I resonate the most with the Asyncronous Self. I find that being tied to the ping on a phone is distracting to my ability to be truly present with others. I value people more than social media, so a habit I have begun this school year is to have my phone ringer off. I check it often for notifications, and have the freedom to respond to texts or phone calls when I am ready. And I agree with Bonnie – who phones any more these days anyway? My mom.<\/p>\n Finally, a third person biography of my true self taken from the one photo and press release I could find (not of one of the hundreds of others found online), it would read something like – “Dawn is a Vice Principal at a middle school in the Kootenays. She has a passion for personalized learning and is excited to join the team at SD8. She and her husband have 5 kids and enjoy the Kootenay lifestyle.” Other than that, people would have to come to the Koots to check it out in person!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was quite surprised to find that when I went online and googled myself, I did not exist! Even on several search engines, and after many pages of looking, I could not find a trace. Except, at the bottom of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dig-lit","category-finding-u","category-twu-online","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}