We live in an age where almost every person uses some form of online services, such as banking and shopping, or keeping in touch with friends via social media platforms. Every time you use an online service, you leave some form of trace through personal information, cookies or other data about you being stored.

If you want to visually unpack how you use the web, you can use the excellent Visitors and Residents mapping method to work out where you are on a continuum as an internet user. While this tool has been developed primarily to understand how people engage with the web, it can also be a really useful reflective tool if you want to understand a bit more about your own use. Further information can be found here, including a helpful video guide.

Now check out our video about managing your online identity to find out more before moving on to the exercises for this week.

Video transcript

Thing 3 activities

Write about googling yourself and your feelings about this exercise

Were there any surprise results? Any concerns about the results?

Do you have action plans of accounts to cull or privacy settings to be changed after this exercise?

Take a look at another 23 Research Things Programme participant’s blog (if you can find one), comment on one of their posts and follow them

Thing 3 learning outcomes

You should understand some of the issues surrounding online identity and online activities

You should have engaged with some privacy concerns about online use

You should have had the opportunity to identify personal action plans to address old accounts and/or privacy settings as appropriate

You should have reflected on Thing 3 through blogging

Image: filip bossuyt
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