I Googled Myself & Here's What I Found...

As a 19-year-old living in the 21st century, I pretty much grew up with social media. If I can remember correctly I created my first social media account around 7th grade. In the beginning, my parents were really strict about how much time I spent online and how I used that time. At one point they even had some of my passwords so that they could ensure that I wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing. Compared to now, I was definitely reckless with how I portrayed myself on my social media accounts, so I'm kind of glad that there isn't too much from my past online.

I became really invested in this quest to find myself online and was surprised at what I found. To my knowledge, there's nothing negative online about me, and I probably owe that to my parent's guidance throughout my first couple of years being on social media. But I did find some things that I didn't expect to see at all. Things I almost forgot I participated in and didn't even know made its way to the internet. Of course, things like my Linkedin profile came up immediately which is fine by me because that's related to myself as a student and will hopefully play a role in me working in the field of my choice. I also found some "stats" from when I ran track in high school which really surprised me because I literally only participated for a couple of months. 

After digging a little bit deeper I also found some information from when I attended The Omega Black College Tour back in 2017 while deciding where I wanted to attend school for the upcoming years. This opportunity played a really important role in where I finally decided to attend school, but I had no idea there was this much about it online. Not only was my name mentioned multiple times throughout the tour's website, but there were also pictures that I've never even seen of myself before.  

As far as finding my different social media sites (like Twitter and Instagram) I didn't find anything at all when I searched my full first and last name. That's because on things like my Instagram I don't use my real name. I want to say it's because I prefer to use a nickname, but in reality, my real name was just never available. I think choosing whether or not you want your name on your social media accounts all depends on what your purpose of having that account is. If your purpose is to showcase a brand, and you want to develop authenticity with your clients/ customers maybe using your real name is best. But when it comes to more personal accounts where you share selfies I think going for something more fun or laid back is totally appropriate. 

UPDATE: 11/9/2019

For some random reason, I decided to search my name again, but this time using a different browser and I found something that I didn't see the first time. This website called Search People Free had my New York house address, my phone number, and the names and numbers of the other residents of that house. As if that wasn't scary enough, there were also names and numbers of other members of my family that have never even lived in that house. The website even had some of my parent's previous addresses that they confirmed were correct.