Upon attempting to Google myself, I realized that I was not too readily available on the internet. My results displayed many other more established Michelle Walkers in the world, ranging from a jazz musician to a photographer. Upon refining my search by including my hometown, I was able to acquire articles and pictures from local newspapers and from my high school’s website. I am content with this present level of “googlability.” I do not think I have done anything quite worthy of a first page search results posting yet in my life. I appreciate that my every action on Facebook or any pictures that I may appear in are not right out in the open. You would essentially have to be searching for data on specifically my life to find such results. However, in the future I would not be opposed to having any grand achievements displayed for others to see on Google.
Potential advantages or limitations from being searchable on Google rely heavily on whether or not the accessible information is positive or negative regarding your life. If there are primarily articles about you winning awards or doing charity work, then being searchable would be beneficial because it would promote your image. However, if the search results turn up scandalous photos of you or a criminal record, for example, then being searchable could be detrimental in a career search or for finding other great opportunities. There are risks involved in being on Google as well. Information that you may have thought was private on the internet can be displayed for all eyes to see. Thus, we must always be careful what we post on the internet in case others might decide to search our names in the future.
I agree with you that one of the reasons most of us are not very googlable is that we have not achieved anything grand enough yet. The only information available about myself were found through famous websites such as Blogger and Facebook. I also agree that having positive information about oneself on google can be advantageous in terms of promoting, but in a sense it could also draw too much public attention and eventually cause private life to be threatened.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your point that we should always be careful about what we post on the internet. Since we all know that there are potential risks of googability, we have to make sure that no private information or pictures that could potentially harm our privacies are posted on the internet, if we don't want others to see them.
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