Abigail Sowalla - Blog Post 6

For this sixth blog post, I endeavored to discover just how much someone could learn about me through online stalking. I logged out of all my accounts and opened an incognito window. Then, in the spirit of the occasion, I left my old life behind and gave myself a new name. No longer was I Abby, a student of social media communication – my new name was Stalkerina, and I was madly obsessed with a young woman I had heard of from a friend.

Stalkerina leaned over her computer, opened Google Chrome, and entered the name she had heard – Abigail Sowalla – into the search bar. Instantly, the page was flooded with links to websites boasting information about Stalkerina’s latest obsession. She clicked on the first link – one that led to the social media website LinkedIn – and her information reconnaissance mission began.

“I am a student at Christopher Newport University,” the Linkedin bio read, “planning to graduate in May 2020.” Stalkerina read on and learned that Abigail was working on a Bachelor of Arts in communication studies and that she had a strong interest in media production. The profile was accompanied by a picture of a smiling young woman in a ponytail, a natural wooded mountain landscape behind her. Casually leaning back in her desk-chair, Stalkerina wondered how likely she would be to meet this young woman if she were to visit CNU’s campus.

The next search result led to the Student Leadership page of a website for the Catholic Campus Ministry at Christopher Newport University. Stalkerina smiled as she saw that every member of the club’s leadership team had an email posted next to their name, including Abigail Sowalla. Stalkerina made note of this email and toyed with the idea of attempting to contact her obsession sometime in the future. Stalkerina acquired another picture of the young woman and a few new pieces of information – Abigail’s minors were Leadership Studies and Digital Humanities, and her interests included nature walks and drawing.

Stalkerina then ventured to Facebook. Although Abigail’s posts and profile information were hidden, Stalkerina was able to view some pages that the woman had favorited, including Cats the Movie and a page about Thanksgiving.

Then came Youtube, where Stalkerina found an account with a single video posted: “Bio video project.” After watching the video and being appalled by the poor audio quality, Stalkerina was able to glean that Abigail lived in a suburban neighborhood and had at least 3 friends.

Stalkerina proceeded to dig through a series of smaller, less-known websites to find tidbits of information on the mysterious Abigail. A researchgate.net page showed only that Abigail had an account. Play.useultimate.net revealed that Abigail had at some point been on a college ultimate frisbee team. The Christopher Newport University website had published Abigail’s name on its dean’s lists more than once. Hurricanedigitalhumanities.wordpress.com contained a writing sample of Abigail’s which said that she had joined CNU’s Campus Activities Board and enjoyed haunted houses. An obituary article for a relative provided a list of potential relatives; Stalkerina supposed that she might search these names later in case they gave her more information about Abigail’s family and whereabouts. Searchpeoplefree.com listed some potential addresses and phone numbers, which Stalkerina noted with interest, wondering if she should pay any visits to the listed locations in hopes of finding Abigail.

At this point in her search, Stalkerina was becoming frustrated as websites with meaningful information about Abigail Sowalla disappeared to be replaced with information about sports teams in Walla Walla, WA. She decided to try a more intentful search – she hadn’t seen any pages pop up for Twitter or Instagram yet, and thought those websites were worth checking out. Unfortunately for Stalkerina, nothing about Abigail was to be found on either of these popular social media sites.
Finally, Stalkerina concluder her search with a scroll through Google Images. She was disappointed to find that only 2 of the photos in the first page of images appeared to contain Abigail. Stalkerina added these two pictures to her online photo album and decided to call it a night. Maybe, if she was still obsessed the next day, she would look into some of those family members.

. . .

As I observed Stalkerina’s progress, I found myself becoming concerned as I realized how a real stalker might use the information about me that’s available online. For example, the connection between my second google search result and my email address leaves me open to contact from strangers. I thought back to the article on revenge porn (Scheinbaum, Stroud & Henson, 2016) assigned earlier this week, and how strangers would use various forms of contact to harass women they didn’t know. Although I don’t plan on involving myself in in a tricky situation involving online photography, there is still a possibility that someone in the future might attempt to make contact with me or even verbally attack me. After all, the people who fall victim to online abuse don’t expect or desire to be abused prior to finding themselves in these situations. Reflecting on this issue leaves me painfully aware of my online vulnerability.

I am glad that I couldn’t find certain other pieces of information about me online. For example, I couldn’t find my phone number. I get enough scam calls without my number being available to anyone with Wi-Fi! I’m also glad that there’s little information online denoting my physical location, aside from the copious websites confirming that I attend CNU. Over all, I think that, compared to other college students my age, I have a relatively small online footprint. I don’t have an Instagram account, my Twitter doesn’t have enough bio information to be linked to me, and my accounts on Facebook and LinkedIn don’t reveal an awful lot about me to people who haven’t friended me. That being said, LinkedIn does provide another avenue for people to contact me, whether I’ve accepted a friendship/following with them or not. In fact, I have received a few messages about generic job offers that I’m sure most of my class who are on LinkedIn have also received. In order for me to stem the potential for strangers online to contact me, I would have to delete my LinkedIn account and change my primary email.

To conclude, information about me is out there online, and I’m not safe from anyone who might want to contact me. I’ll continue to live my life in the hope that a real Stalkerina never takes interest in me.

References:

Stroud, S. R. & Henson, J. A. (2019). Social media, online sharing, and the ethical complexity of consent in revenge porn. In Scheinbaum, A. C. (ed.) Online Consumer Behavior: The Dark Side of Social Media (14-32). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.