Self Googling or call it 'Ego Surfing' scales higher with more online surfers found to be just looking for themselves or checking out their friends, co-workers or for romantic interests.
A research Entitled "Digital Footprints: Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency," Pew Internet and American Life Project said 47 percent of US adult Internet users have looked for information through googling themselves. The search engines sorted are either Google or of choice. 53 percent adult users are looking up for information about someone else with often, about those they've lost touch with. However, looking for information of friends, colleagues and the like is common. 60 percent people aren't worried about the extent of information about themselves online, despite of the concern on how the data can be used.
Pew finds that teens were more likely than adults to restrict who can see their profiles at online hangouts like facebook.
Well, Googling reveals a lot of information as people leave footprints on web. However, I always ego surf when I sort for my own writing since posting on a couple of websites and blogs since more than many many years, keeps one lose tract of posts and as such, google reveals all! So, it's quite easier to find the lost tracks. I've a special Children Search Engine here and you can find these ex students on the web with all their activities! That's how a teacher can keep a track of all its students:-) What they've achieved, where they are, what they're doing...n lot more. Even the ex students have united and called back reviving the memories of the yester years.
Searches have the capacity to reunite, reignite social connextions and even googling for professional reasons. Ego surfing finds way to stat reports too as the googling name reflects keyword on the stats while you visit the search results. As such, googling self or others itself is apt to increase as at least, once a person will look for his name.
So, the next time, you are leaving your impressions on the web with your words, images or searches, Google knows it all!
- ilaxi
