Non-Fiction

What Is Your Digital Footprint and Why Is It Important?

By Xavier Arnot – Year 7

Your digital footprint is all the photos, videos and personal and business data that you put online to a website or social media network. You may have heard that everything that you post online is deleted after a few weeks or months.Well, I don’t mean to disappoint when I say this, but this is just a myth. Whatever you post online stays online, even if you delete something right after you put it on the web. Just think, you or your friendship group posts something on Instagram and then a minute later it is deleted. Someone on the other side of the world could have screenshot that post and then put it on their Instagram account and the circle continues.​

This is a photo of the first ever website that was published in 1991. That was over thirty years ago, and it is still visitable today, so think about that. The photo you posted on the web could be there for another thirty years or more.

Image credit: https://www.businessinsider.com/flashback-this-is-what-the-first-website-ever-looked-like-2011-6#:~:text=The%20first%20web%20page%20went,%2FWWW%2FTheProject.html.

Now to prevent rude comments or photos getting onto social media networks, such as Instagram, these companies have put up age limits so that under 13’s cannot have a social media account. But sadly, people are faking their age and creating a social media account anyway so that they can chat with their friends, which is concerning considering what they put up on social media. Even worse, their parents and carers are not stressed about it at all. Personally, I would not be happy with my kid being on social media being exposed to all that inappropriate content.​

​Your digital footprint can also consist of things like your search history,  your online bank details and even things as simple as your student ID. All these things can be hacked easily by a person who knows what they’re doing, or by machines that work ten times faster than you could ever type. This is why you should never post private details online like your email, full name, bank details or birthday. Be responsible on social media and do not fake an age if you are under thirteen.​

%d bloggers like this: