Blog Post #2

What if there was a website that allows you to enter in any word(s) where hundreds, thousands and even millions of results will appear. This website already exists and it is called Google.

According to the text, Living in the Information Age, written by Erik Bucy, Google has over 10,000 serves. If you type in the word birds, 16,200,000 search results appear. If you type in the word diseases, 106,000,000 search results appear. If desired, you can narrow down this search. If you type in birds with diseases 12,500,000 results appear. You can continue to narrow this search down. Google even provides this search in 36 different languages.

Students do not even have to search through pages and pages of physical books in the library anymore. Their library is now on the computer and they can do research papers from home. Some people have even saved a life with the help of Google. They may have been experiencing systems of a heart attack and they typed it into Google and found out that was what it was.

Google sounds pretty great, right? Well it also has its drawbacks. Google can come up with millions of search results for millions of topics. They have a library that dates way back, but that is what the problem is. With Google your life is never private and it is especially unforgettable.

For example, the text refers to a man named Michael. He currently holds a professional job at Boston Medical school. He is a clean-cut man in his 30’s. So far he sounds great however, he has a past.

Michael spent time in jail for burglary. He is also a former drug addict. Michael has made some mistakes in his past but it sounds like he is doing very well now. However, this is public information and all someone has to do is type his name into Google and they can find this information out. This could effect is reputation at work. This could also make it hard to get a professional job, even though he already has one, if he wanted to get a different one it could be looked down upon.

Unfortunately, Google will not let you forget your past. Try typing your name into Google and see what comes up. There is also this website called anybirthday.com. This website allows you to type in a persons name and it will provide you their birthday for free, it will also give you the option of background checks. Yellowpages.com allows you to search for a persons address and phone number. It will provide you this without any questions asked.

There are ways to help control how much information about yourself is on the internet, but it can be troublesome. The text offers a few tips to protect yourself from online information. Some of these tips are to use a “No Trespassing” code, to Google yourself regularly, read privacy policies on the webpage, and train yourself to say no to revealing your zip code, area code, or social security number.