Control and Protect Your Online Identity (Part 2)

In part 1 of this post, we talked about why we need to control what we post online. Having active online accounts in social media means you have an online presence. While of course it is not who you are in your entirety in real life, what you do share with the world is what you advertise about yourself. Therefore, it is totally within your control to shape your online profile.

If you haven't read part 1, check it out here now before reading on below.

Let's move on to part 2.


Protect Your Online Profile 

"Using a smartphone without taking the necessary precautions has become riskier than ever," declares Eric Schwartzman, who created Udemy's Mobile Cybersecurity Awareness course. Most of us use our mobile devices nowadays to access our social network via mobile apps, which are generally easy to use. They're sometimes too easy to use, making them also easy to abuse and misuse. We should never dismiss the reality of cybersecurity, especially since protecting ourselves while using online services is actually simple and doesn't take a lot of time to do.

The tips listed below are based largely on the Mobile Cybersecurity Awareness course, and I highly encourage also checking and following these common sense security guidelines.

Control and Protect Your Online Identity (Part 1)

"Is this gonna be seen on the internet? Like, public? Because I'm wondering if I can say negative things." These were my 15-year old son's concerns as he drafted his very first short article for a family blog project. I was pleasantly amused (and mildly proud) because those are exactly what we should all be thinking about before posting anything on the internet.

FutureLearn's short module on "Managing Your Online Identity" says that if you have active social media accounts, then you have an online presence. In my humble opinion, there are two essential aspects about our online presence that we should be mindful of: Controlling what we post (read on below) and Protecting our online profile (discussed in Part 2 of this article).