My Online Presence

Before entering into this course, I had never considered my online presence. Yes, in my first few years of schooling we have been encouraged to create our E-Portfolios in hopes of using them as evidence of our work in job interviews, but I had never fully understood the reasoning behind this. Our E-Portfolios, which has become my platform for blogging is not only to be used as a supplement to my resume, but in some cases it is used as my resume. I can now see how important it can be in this increasingly digitalized world to have a positive online presence, as it will likely be the first impression you make on employers, future students, parents of students, and many others.

As I had found the concept of having an online presence very interesting, I would like to briefly discuss my own. At this point in time I do not have much of a presence at all. In my searches I found my E-Portfolio and blog posts on a few different occasions, but that was about the extent of results aside from some obituaries that had my name in them. I would love to continue to grow my presence and create an online profile that will leave a positive acting impression on whoever comes across it.

I have created a screen recording with a voice over of my searches that you can watch below!

Problems of the Internet

Through this weeks class I have not only learned about the importance of having a positive presence on the internet, I have learned about the importance of maintaining it. The internet can be a scary place, especially when one makes a mistake. These mistakes whether harmless or harmful are permanently on the internet, and for some their mistakes become very public. As discussed by Jon Robson in How One Tweet Can Ruin Your Life, People have the tendencies to gain a mob mentality when it comes to internet shaming. This shaming seems to fall under the topic of cyber vigilantism, or the act of people attempting to serve justice. Often people are ‘cancelled’ for one tweet or one post by a group of people attacking them online. I have noticed this concept has seemed become much more prominent throughout the past 5-7 years, or at least I have noticed it more frequently.

I participated in a group discussion in class about cyber vigilantism and what we feel is right, and honestly our ideas were inconclusive. It is so difficult to day whether someone should be called out for their post, or if a comment would do anything at all. It is possible that the post is simply to get a reaction, or maybe someone is uneducated on the topic. I feel that it is not right to make posts that are racist, sexist, or illegal, but I have to also wonder if it is right for thousands of people to then harass that person for in some cases years. As they say, two wrongs do not make a right, so, what is the line that makes calling someone out wrong? I am still trying to figure that out.