Is that me? Raising undergraduate students awareness of their digital footprint

Dr.Janaina de Oliveira – Dr. Mar Camacho Universitat Rovira i Virgili Dr. Gabriela Grosseck Univesity of West Timisoara

‘ Digital identity ‘ is concerned with the relation between
people's experience of their own identity
and the identity as shaped by others in the cyberspace.
photo: http://indigo-moogle.deviantart.com/art/Digital-Identity-127846683

The more content we contribute to the public or semipublic corners of the Web , the more we grow our active
digital footprint .
photo : http://current.com/technology/92945318_who-protects-your-digital-footprint-it-better-be-you.htm

Our aim was to investigate undergraduate students’ awareness of their online identity .
photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exfordy/128576390/

Academic year 2011/2012 at the URV, Spain
135 volunteer participants
Facebook users
Study degree: Bachelor in Education
Age: 18 ~ 45 years old
„ The Museum of Me”
Pre and post activity questionnaires
Focus groups were held to follow on from each of the questionnaires
Logbooks related to the perceptions towards identity management

59% have more than 200 friends
13% have between 101 and 200 friends
No participant has fewer than 20 contacts

Very much Somewhat Not really Not at all Do you know social networks privacy settings? 5% 53% 25% 0% In case you know social privacy network settings, do you use them? 30% 40% 13% 1% How much do your contacts in social networks influence you? 1% 26% 46% 4% How much do you think you influence your contacts in social networks? 1% 22% 52% 8% How much consideration do you give to uploading content to social networks or to the comments you make to other people content? 13% 47% 21% 3% Are you worried about what people think about you in social networks? 6% 15% 40% 23% Are you worried about the influence the content you upload to social networks may have on your professional life? 17% 34% 22% 11% How does the self you present in social networks match your real self? 49% 23% 9% 3%

Reasonable knowledge and use of privacy settings in social networks.
Skeptical about the influence other participants may have on them or on the influence they have on other participants.
60% of them reported giving some level of consideration to the information they upload to social networks though.
63% said they are not really concerned about what other people may think of them.
Approximately a half of the participants expressed some level of preoccupation about the impact the information they upload may have on their professional life.
Most of them interact in Facebook exposing what they believe to be an identity close to their real identity.

Very much Somewhat Not really Not at all How precise is the exhibition you have just seen? 25% 48% 7% 1% How does the self presented in your exhibition match the self you want to present in Facebook? 27% 47% 5% 2% Does your exhibition make you reconsider what you upload to social networks, the comments you make or the friends you accept? 7% 28% 29% 17%

Most students reported using privacy settings, giving some level of consideration to the content they upload and presenting an identity closely related to their real identity .
+
73% of the participants found the exhibition to be precise
=
High level of consistency between pre and post activity questionnaires.

(...) up to now I’ve been very careful about everything I publish and the friends I accept and after seeing the video I think it gives a very right perspective on who I am and this is the one I want to share.

I think the exhibition looks like me because there is little personal information, that ‘s the way I mean it to be. I do not want the use of social networks to me a constant exhibition of my personal life, but a way to communicate which is useful and comfortable.

My exhibition shows a curious enjoyable person who wants to have a good time with people she loves and with people who are close to her.

Don’t worry, control it !
Need to protect personal life and professional life.
Desire to be themselves online, showing most positive traits of their lively and youthful personality.

Most students feel they take measures to protect their personal life in Facebook.
Students expressed the perception they do not accept any person as a friend .
They feel they are reasonably selective of the people who see their content online.
However... the majority of the participants in this study have more than 200 friends.

People familiar with social networks keep flexible bonds with the people they meet.
Social network users are able to keep some sort of contact with people they had a friendly but superficial contact.
Apparently , students need to protect their personal life does not exclude these types of personal contacts.

Janaina de Oliveira janaina.oliveira@urv.cat
Mar Camacho mar.camacho@urv.cat
Gabriela Grosseck ggrosseck@socio.uvt.ro

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Is that me? Raising undergraduate students awareness of their digital footprint

by marcamacho on Jan 31, 2012

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Is that me? Raising undergraduate students awareness of their digital footprint — Presentation Transcript