I decided to Google myself and I’m not surprised by what I found. Honestly, this isn’t the first time I’ve Googled myself. The one thing I hate the most that pops up is one of my papers. This site somehow got access to it and part of my notes, I asked them to take it down, but they told me I’d have to file a claim and I didn’t want to deal with it. Now, people who pay a subscription to the study site have access to them. Another thing that I hate is one of my email profile pictures, I was like 12 and I uploaded a picture of a movie stub and me in the background with 3D glasses.

Everything else, I understand why they pop up. I’m very involved in stuff, have been since high school. You can find my stats for my high school water polo team (weight, position, height, etc). I’ve received scholarships and the news articles that come out showing recipients are accessible to others. I’m in a sorority so, our public profiles with tagged photos of me also pop up. Many of the social media accounts I have been tagged in are for public access. The pictures I see are people who were in the clubs I’m in, people who also received a scholarship, my sorority sisters, and anything containing my name (now medium is added to the pop ups).

My name is unique so the first things you see are all me (LinkedIn Profile, Twitter Account, Medium Account, etc). I’m a very open person, so I don’t mind that others can access all of this. It’s all information I could tell you myself. If I think about it more though, I do get uncomfortable with it. Only because I do get creeps randomly messaging me at times and, I have had a stalker before. This time when I Googled myself, there was a website selling my information. I’m not sure how accurate it is, and I didn’t click on it verify, so that’s a little bit scary considering my past experiences.

Overall, the only new thing I learned was that medium is now added to the list of stuff that pops up and there is a website that potentially has part of my private information available to others. Everything else, wasn’t anything different than what I’ve seen in the past.