$$ Week 1 Thoughts & Reflections

Digital Footprint

            This week, I learned that digital footprint is just about any mark we leave online. The online world in this way is so very different than reality. In the real world, we may walk past an empty church during the summer, and no one, and nothing, would even know that we walked past. Online, when we are to visit a certain website, even if no one is monitoring the website, there is a record of our visit, and what we looked at. If we write any words, such as these I am leaving on this blog post, the words may be archived forever. Reality suddenly seems anonymous in comparison to the Internet. What do you think? Is the digital world more anonymous, or reality?

Netiquette 

            I like to highlight this topic as well because Netiquette did not exist for me as a vocabulary until this week. I would have thought this was the making of one of my co workers, such as the term: “Mangings” for “Men leggings”. On a more serious note, etiquette on the Internet definitely can positively define a person’s digital footprint, and become a resource for their offline experience as well. A well established online digital footprint can lead to opportunities, such as employment, offline. As more and more of our offline personal information and professional information are transferred online, such as with some employment sites, I wonder how we can use digital tools to improve society overall and encourage the population to be healthier.

            In Public Health, I’ve learned about current research that has shown how a person’s brain with mental health conditions (e.g. Schizophrenia) differs biologically in comparison to those who are mentally healthy. More importantly, I’ve learned how simple activities such as yoga and meditation can change the brain’s biology in a matter of a month or two for these people. And amazingly, all of these has been captured and is distinguishable by brain scans. While the technology is not yet perfected, this is a clear indication that mental conditions can be modified. And as these experiments could distinguish the changes in the parts of the brain that portrays a person’s personality, from how patient and humble they are, to how strong willed they are, brain scans may be the future in determining the mental condition of any potential employee.

     

               Imagine a company like LinkedIn that gives people voluntary choice whether to create a personal profile, and allows companies to access their profiles in selection of a future employee. Unlike LinkedIn, their voluntary profile will come from a voluntary brain scan, where the information is a true mental snapshot of what constitutes the individual’s mental capacity. Employers will know to near perfect accuracy the things such as how empathetic the person is or how patient they are. While individuals may not do well in creating their profile for the first time, they can meditate, exercise, do yoga, study, and do all the things to improve their mental health before doing another brain scan to “update” their profile. This could potentially become a tool not only to match employers in society with employees of high caliber, but also promote individuals in society to commit to personal development in the process. Moreover, there would not be a need for a drug test that could show either false positive, or false negative.

Notes

            After completing the Secondary Digital Driver’s License Exam with 20/20, I do realize that my computer does not even have a virus scan software nor do I know what brand is effective today. Any suggestions?