People Were More Likely To Google Themselves This Year

Ponca City, We Love You writes "More than twice as many Americans googled themselves in 2006 than five years previous — and many are googling their friends and romantic interests as well, according to a report released ecently by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The survey shows that the percentage of US adult Internet users who have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine has more than doubled in the past five years (pdf) from 22 percent in August, 2001 to 47 percent in December, 2006. Only 3 percent of internet self-googlers say they Google themselves regularly, 22 percent say 'every once in a while,' and three-quarters say they have googled themselves once or twice. The original report, 'Digital Footprints,' contains many more interesting observations (pdf)."

Comments

You may google my user name, not my given name

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

Am I the only person who has actively concealed themselves from prying online eyes?

I've been a pretty affluent internet creature since the mid 90's (yes, a latecomer in this crowd, I understand) and since my first forays onto the www I've filled-out registration information with bogus info. Having done this for more than a decade, I can in fact google myself, but only via usernames and other pseudonyms.

Even my myspace and facebook profiles are semi-bogus. I understand that certain high-profile instances will launch your true identity into the limelight (any bit of media publicity for example), but I constantly hear about individuals who are googleable, not because of a media instance, but simply because they have placed themselves into the great index.

Who has willfully made themselves searchable, and why? I have enjoyed a fruitful, successful life in the IT industry this whole time and I have not yet needed to put my personal info into a publicly searchable and available location.

What are the benefits? I ask, because to me, being a very private person, I see mostly, maybe overwhelmingly, negative results.

Re:You may google my user name, not my given name

[Thunderstruck]

Like anything else, the benefits will vary depending on who you are. You indicate that you have a successful life in the IT industry. You probably work for a school or business, and have no need for people to be able to find you on the Internet.

By contrast, small businessmen, artists, private doctors, lawyers, politicians, and a host of other types of people not only benefit from being visible on the internet, they need to be there in order to seem legitimate to potential clients or customers.

My guess is, in the future, how we think about the face we present on the internet will be a lot like how we think about getting dressed in the morning. We'll ask ourselves, "Where am I going, and is anyone important going to see me there?"

Re:You may google my user name, not my given name

[localman]

Man. I get that the reality is people are super judgemental and that we're always playing the reputation game whether we like it or not... but it does bum me out that people have to be so fake all the time. People haven't come to accept that others are sometimes as wild and crazy as we are. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, so why is everyone so shocked when they find other people's skeletons in the closet? Meh.

I suppose I'm an idiot: I wear my freakdom like a badge of honor most of the time. Anyone could find out pretty easily that I was part of a white rap group, an offensive punk band, and that I directed a film that features Jesus smoking a joint. So far it hasn't been a problem, and I've had some good jobs. But I bet it will bite me eventually. Oh well... I'm going to try to represent: you can be wild and crazy at times and still be extremely diplomatic and professional when called for.

I hope someday we can deal with people being multi-faceted.

Cheers.

Ummmm

[SlashDev]

How do they know that people are googling themselves??????