12/13/13
Mass Media

Your Digital Footprint

We are living in a digital world, it is in almost all aspects of life. Technology today has everything stream lined and molded into the fastest and most convenient forms possible to help make people’s lives better and ultimately easier. The advancements and innovations that have been made throughout recent years are remarkable when compared to where the world was just a few years to a decade ago. With the internet and everything connected to it- instant messaging, real time video, shopping, education programs- the possibilities for technology in the future are almost endless.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $7.2 billion for broadband deployment and data mapping. President Barack Obama’s 2012 fiscal budget devoted another $10.7 billion to expand broadband access (BROADBAND INTERNET EXPANSION AND LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES) this statistic puts it into prospective. More funding is being taken from other aspects to be put towards innovation and discovery in the digital media world. This is also changing just about every aspect in a person’s everyday life including the education system. One of the primary responsibilities for K-12 schools is to prepare all students to become 21st Century Learners. Young kids in the current generation will grow up learning the new technology while the older generations have had to adapt to the changes.
With the new generation growing up already being technological savvy, it is easy for them to access many of the numerous digital outlets that are out there that allow them to communicate with others and basically the whole world. But with great power comes great responsibility, with the internet and everything being interconnected there are problems that come along with it. Your digital footprint or what is also known as your digital shadow is traces of what you do on the internet but also the interactions in social media, and business transactions. For instance, you buy something online through eBay or Amazon you think that are secure, right? Maybe not so much. When you buy something online your name is stored in the database and can be traced back to the item that you purchased. Your digital footprint can also be used in many other different ways. Your digital footprint can also be used for online advertising. Online advertising spending in the United States exceeded $36 billion in 2012. To better get their advertisement to the audience, the companies use a method of target advertisement. Target advertising is when you see a certain ad depending on your demographics: where you live, how old you are, your gender, etc. They also can base the ads you see off the records of previous items you have purchased and match the advertised products accordingly. The problem that is most predominant in people is that they are just uneducated with the complex and complicated aspects of the internet and how their online actions can hurt them in the long run. The majority of employers in today’s world conduct background searches of potential employees, specifically focusing on their digital footprint. It only takes a few seconds for someone to type a name into Google and have access to a large amount of information regarding their life. Managing your digital footprint has become a point of emphasis for many young adults today. As employers now use your online footprint to trace the activities of their employees online. According to Careerbright (2012), "One in five employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, and close to 59% of them are influenced by your online presence." All this being legal. If you look at it from a big firm’s point of view it makes sense. They have a number of people looking for the same job they all have a good GPA and application how you choose one. So they google you and your profile picture your status updates and who you are friends with says a lot about you that an application cannot. Doing