I don’t think that digital footprints are really discussed enough in school, or at all. This shouldn’t be the case, especially with how prevalent being ‘looked up’ is now. I have an Indeed account with my resume attached, to help me search for jobs. Without having applied for the job, I was contacted on my Facebook account about a job. Since I learned in my undergrad to curate my feed, I was less intimidated by the idea of a prospective employer seeing my Facebook feed as what is put forth for non-friends is very curated. Teaching students to have tight permissions on their Facebook for who can view what and who can tag you in things is one way to help students learn to manage their digital footprints.

We should teach them online responsibility, which I think a lot of people, never mind just students, don’t understand. When I think of online responsibility, the first thing that comes to mind is the lack of it. I think of the common internet troll, spewing hate because they think they’re immune to consequences when it’s online.

“Internet trolling” by The People Speak is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

If there’s anything that we know now, it’s definitely that there’s consequences for the things you say online now. The number of stories I’ve heard of teachers losing their jobs for photos on their Facebook, or Instagram, or people losing their jobs due to hateful comments on the internet goes up everyday. One thing I like to think about is whether I would speak to people face to face the way I am posting online.