Self Stalking

When this homework assignment was assigned, I was very nervous because I assumed that certain information that I have posted on social media would come up. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the most revealing information out there about me was my a few pictures of myself, that I had set as a profile picture for some website, and my twitter. I started on the White Pages website and this was a little freaky because I was directed towards a website called Spokeo which allowed me to "get a full report about the owner" if I were to pay $.95. Information such as my full name, currently address, family members, etc is available to anybody who wants to pay. The Factfinder webs tie didn't scare me because information about people who live in my zip code does not disclose any specific information about me. Instead of going on the access dane website (because I am not from WI), I typed in my address into Google. I was directed to Zillow and they have a picture of my house, information bout the house itself such as the price, and number of rooms. This could potentially be really creepy if people knew my address, because they could get a glimpse of the wealth of my neighborhood and make certain assumptions. NYtimes didn't give me any relevant information. The next step was to do a social networking search. I have two different names, Alexandra which is my real name and Kiki which is the name that I go by. When typing in Kiki Lazic, the first thing that came up was my Facebook. You can only see all of my profile pictures and cover photos, along with the comments on each picture. I was already aware of this because I specifically set my privacy settings that way. The second thing that popped up was a picture of me that was linked to my profile picture on my Pinterest account. The third thing on Google was my twitter account. This frustrated me because I rarely use twitter, and I don't know how to work the privacy settings. Regardless, all of my posts are available for the public. This scares me and almost makes me want to delete my account because if I rarely use it, why would I want the public to see all of my posts. It was the third hit on Google, which is okay with me. When I looked at Google images of me, there were 5 pictures of me. 3 were profile pictures from websites that I have accounts on, and I have no idea where the other two came from. When I typed in Alexandra, information about two twin girls came up, which is clearly inaccurate. I am not ashamed or worried about the person that a geodemographic firm would see when they look for me. I like that when someone types my name into LinkedIn they can see my full profile, because it shows my work experience. I am not okay with the fact that anybody can see my Twitter account. Although I have nothing to hide and did not make any embarrassing posts using profanity, etc, firms can still get a sense for my general attitude which can easily influence them in a particular way. In general, I am okay with the representation of my existence on the Web. The pictures displayed are completely fine, and I don't have anything that I wish was taken down. However, I am not happy that firms can see my Twitter. I am going to look into how to make my Twitter more private, or simply delete it.