With all things in life, we see progression and development; in our case now we see this with technology and how much it effects our day to day lives without us really knowing. Technology is an incredible part of our lives that brings with it many advancements and helpful tools to help us develop and grow as a society, however, it is important to understand that there are issues that arise with all of this. By understanding what is at stake, we can effectively use technology without the consequences of misuse or poor judgement, we need to be able to identify the problems and consider how they can possibly affect us. Being aware of our digital footprint and the potential consequences our online actions can help us make better choices. We need to be able to find a balance between what we do and do not share online, our whole life does not need to be posted to social media, sometimes our posts can be twisted in order to make them look a certain way that is not favorable to us. By understanding that we don’t need complete transparency we can effectively use technology to our advantage.

Along with our digital footprint, we need to understand cyber-vigilantism as well as cyber-shaming as they are both topics that I am sure we have all (or at least lots of us) seen or experienced. These two topics are forms of online actions where people seem to take justice into their own hands by shaming people for what they believe is wrong, this is often done publicly for everyone to see which is where the line between good or bad is often blurred. Of course, there are times where there may be good intention behind the actions however like I said the line between good and bad can be blurred as people sometimes don’t see that by making a post bashing someone online it can create an avalanche of other people starting to bash them online which is just unnecessary and ultimately wrong. The internet can be a powerful amplifier, sometimes a simple post can turn into a full-blown witch hunt situation; things like this often raise the questions as to where ethics lye in all of this. This can also show us the impact of mob mentality in digital spaces, this is especially taken advantage of due to the fact that people can create fake accounts to keep them anonymous when creating these bad posts.

Our digital footprint is a major overlook when it comes to topics such as this. People do not often think about what they post online and what it can actually bring back to you. Our digital footprint is something that stays with us whether we like it or not, deleting things we post online does not completely rid it from existence. Whenever you make a post, the information is stored somewhere so that, if need be, it can be accessed. One thing that really made me do a double take on things I post was when I found out that snapchat has a record of everything that you post. It was weird going back and seeing all these different messages that I had sent and deleted sitting right in front of me like I had just sent them. Every message, every picture you send is stored which truly makes you question whether or not it is worth it to make the post. As I have grown and started thinking of these things more, I feel that I take more time to think about the things I send before sending it. It helps keep me safe while also ensuring there is nothing being shared that could hurt others.