Nothing Wrong with Self-Googling

A new report released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows an increasing common trend among Internet users today – self-Googling, or the act of looking oneself up on the Internet using the Google search engine.

The new report indicates that more and more people are trying to keep tabs on the nature of personal information appearing on the Internet. The report shows 47 percent of all people using the Internet have done a Google search on themselves at some point in time.

While the upward increase in the number of such people – by two times over the past five years – seems a big jump, only a small number of them indulge in self-Googling on a regular basis. In fact, only 50 percent of all Internet users have self-Googled at least once.

The report is based on a study Pew carried out on 1,623 Internet users. The users were asked questions relating to their education, views, and the manner in which they managed their personal information available online. The results were more or less along expected lines.

The chances of self-Googling were more among the younger generation and also those with more education than among users from the older generation. Users who were below 50 years of age and held college degrees were more likely to indulge in self-searching on the Internet than users who were older and not as educated.

The report also indicated people with broadband access at home were more likely to indulge in self-searching online, as were people who had high household incomes. Both men and women had equal propensity to conduct self-searches on the Internet, the report said.

However, the report indicated that the number of users indulging in self-Googling on a regular basis was a mere 3 percent, while those that did it once or a couple of times stood at a whopping 74 percent. Once-in-a-while searchers made up the other 22 percent.

While the general perception is that self-searching could be a negative trait associated with vanity, according to Pew a little bit of ‘Net vanity’ is a good thing, and even better when done on a regular basis, as it enables users to be certain that what is appearing about them online is true and within the limits of public decency.

The number of users who said the information they found about themselves is accurate stood at 87 percent according to the report. This is a 13-percent jump from the 74 percent recorded in 2002. The number of people with bad experiences stood at four percent, while another 11 percent said the information about them was lacking in accuracy.

The Pew report also said the number of users who Googled others was more than the number that Googled on themselves. This is true especially in the case of employers checking out prospective candidates.

Recommendations made in the report include encouraging users to familiarize themselves with the privacy controls existing on social networking sites and other websites as well.