Blog 6

Cyberstalking Myself - Blog 6

To start my stalking, I first googled my first and last name: Rebecca Toskey. Thankfully, with an Italian last name such as Toskey, I did not have to look hard to find myself. I have to say, none of the things that popped up surprised me that much. I have done this challenge before for a professional workshop so I am fairly aware of what comes up when my name is searched. It is still a little unsettling that anyone can look up my name and find pictures of what I looked like all the way back to middle school. However, as I was scrolling through the first couple of links that appeared, I wondered what would come up if I only put in "Becca Toskey". I thought this might make a difference since it was not until my junior/senior year of high school that I decided to prefer the nickname Becca over my full name. I was surprised that the pages were almost completely different in the first links and images that appeared. I was even more surprised that a picture of Dr. Bernabo came up on my images!  Personally, I think the one where I used my full name is more of what I would want employers to see in comparison to the one where I searched my nickname.

The images from my nickname are from old Snapchat filters, old friends, and sorority edits that were used for big/little reveal. It also was funny to me that the first link for 'Rebecca' was my Facebook, and the first link for 'Becca' was my Instagram. 

I decided to take a look at my Facebook, for I'm not extremely active on the platform and have never been good at keeping up with posting content.

My Facebook page was about what I expected it to be. I did not have anyone around me to view my Facebook on another device, so I just logged out of my account. My recent updates are very limited, but I did not find anything that I would be embarrassed for others to see. That being said, a few months ago I did go through all my photo albums since freshman year of college and cleaned everything up once I really started looking for a career. Now that I am basically out of college (shoutout COVID-19 for ruining senior year), I can probably start updating my cover photo and profile photo from sorority themed photos to something more professional. However, I am happy that it shows my accomplishments and recent job positions. Even the photos available for preview were pretty good! I was relieved that at a basic glance it would be hard to find any extremely personal information, but I know someone who is very determined would probably be able to easily access my data from Facebook (not like it has not been done before, shoutout Facebook documentary). 

The next link I wanted to look into was my twitter. It was one of the first links to appear when I searched 'Becca Toskey' and I wanted to see how different I seemed when comparing my Facebook and my Twitter. My Twitter is definitely more casual and humorous. That being said, I would much rather have an employer run into my Facebook before Twitter. Sometimes I forget that anyone can see more than just what you retweet, they are also able to see what you 'like'. While there is nothing that could be too alarming, there are some liked tweets featuring explicit language or a joke that might not come across as funny to just anyone reading it. I also do not post as many photos on twitter, and barely tweet any original content. Just like Facebook, there was no personal information that would give away anything such as my address, but I do have it mentioned that I am currently located in Jacksonville, Florida and am currently attending Christopher Newport University. 

Finally, I wanted to take a look at my Instagram because this was the first link that came up in my search. With my username being simply @beccatoskey, I am in no shock that it was one of the first results on Google. I have bounced between keeping my account on public and keeping it on private, but recently I have decided it would be best to set it to private. I appreciate the ability to approve who will follow me, even if I barely post photos. Like my Twitter, two common things I have in my bio are my current city and college. Other than that, someone can see I have a little over 1,700 followers and follow around 1,400 accounts. With only 15 posts, someone can assume I do not really use Instagram that much, without seeing any of my posts. I feel like in this day, it is easy to run into someone with at least 100 posts. 

I will also say I took a look at my LinkedIn and realized I should probably pay more attention to my presence on that platform, especially graduating soon with no job lined up. Overall, I think I am consistent in sharing the same amount of information across all my profiles, however, more information was available on Facebook with photos and life updates. The only results that surprised me where the Google images that came up when I searched 'Rebecca' and 'Becca'. In regard to my digital footprint, I am not sure what to say about it. I think it is evident that I am involved on the internet and have all the popular social media handles, but I am not as active on each one in comparison to other people my age. I have tried to pay more attention to the content I post in the past couple of years as I started to look for a post-graduation job. There are so many stories out there of people who have been denied jobs or certain government clearances due to something that was found years ago on someone's social media. I will say I am more inclined to make my Facebook and Twitter private because even if I think I have not shared as much private information, I should still take precautions to further protect myself and my information.