pew internet report: measuring our online footprint

this pew report explores a shift in perceptions and realities of privacy in a digital and transparent age. as we register on more and more social and media sites, we reveal more and more about who we are. as the report states early on, "the more content we contribute voluntarily to the public or semi-public corners of the Web, the more we are not only findable, but also knowable."

i was thinking, while reading, that the statistic that "it is still the case that most internet users are not social networkers or bloggers" was a reflection of the datedness of the study. true, it's only about 2.5 years old, but that is a long time when discussing social media trends. then i read brad's blog post about the study -- he points out that we are the "confident creatives." since i have been pretty participatory on the web since we got AOL at our house, it is hard for me to imagine that the majority of internet users aren't of the same mindset and practices as me.

i don't think i was particularly shocked by any of the findings in the report.

i have been afraid to google my name for the last 5 or so years. once in 2004ish, a friend and i googled ourselves and the top result for me was a scathing review of an article i had written freshman year for the student magazine i wrote for at university of buffalo. the website was some juvenile venture and i didn't take it too hard, but i decided to never google myself again because i'm too sensitive. but in the spirit of participation, i googled myself this weekend. and, like a decent portion of those surveyed for the pew report, i was surprised at what turned up.

i thought that since i blog about 4 or 5 times a week, there would be a bevy of links to my blog, but i was wrong. since i don't use my first and last name on my blog, posts on friends' blogs that use my first and last name appear at the top of the stack of results. my linkedin profile is the first result, a profile i haven't touched in about two years.

there is a certain sense of creepiness and big-brotherness to being able to type your name into a search engine and have results pop up. at the same time, we find it useful when we need/want to find out about other people. it has to work both ways.