1. How might your digital footprint affect your future opportunities? Give at least two examples.

Digital footprints can definitely affect future opportunities such as jobs, universities, and overall credibility. Posting embarrassing or offensive things online will most likely catch up to you later and can result in different consequences. For example, if you post a picture or video of you doing something illegal, that could easily be reported and you could be arrested. Or, if you make a post of you doing something offensive or disrespectful, your future employers would be able to look that up and might not want to hire you.

2. Describe at least three strategies that you can use to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe.

One procedure you should always do before you post anything, is to really think about what you are posting, who could see it, what others might think, and if you would ever regret this down the road. You should make sure that you are not revealing any important personal information like your address, pin number, passwords, or anything like that. You must also always keep in mind that whatever you post is permanent, so you shouldn’t be doing anything to harm, bully, or insult others. If you aren’t sure about any of these things, you probably shouldn’t post it.

3. If you could go back in time, is there anything that you would do differently online? Think of what advice you would pass on to your younger self or other students.

One thing that I would have done differently online is the creation of emails and usernames. When I made my iCloud account, I was only about ten years old, so I set the email as something that is pretty unprofessional and that I am a bit embarrassed to use now. Thankfully, my gmail account email is just under my full name, and I use that for most purposes, but I still regret not doing that for my iCloud. A piece of advice I’d give to others is to really think to the future if you would be willing to share this username to your parents, your teacher, or your boss. I’d really just recommend putting your name, and maybe a few numbers, as you can’t go wrong with that.