I decided not to create a Wikipedia/ Wikimedia account as an editor and instead opted to look at Wikimedia’s range of open knowledge projects. The things that surprised me were 1) the fact that Wikipedia is part of a wider network ‘Wikimedia’ (I had always thought that Wikipedia stood alone as a website), and 2) […]

I had never heard of Google Hangouts before today. It was interesting to use it, although it sort of felt like it was Google using the ideas of Facebook messenger or WhatsApp for their own site. I certainly don’t think I will become a regular user of hangouts- I am glad I know that it […]

I have been using Facebook for years now and am both a member of, and also admin of multiple groups. Therefore, although I read both the article and some of the FAQs about Facebook groups, I don’t think I learned anything particularly new. I use Facebook groups to share ideas about coursework, for societies and […]

Although I do technically have a twitter account, I have never actually used it and also cant remember my login details, nor do I particularly want to, so instead I opted for option 3 of thing 7- looking at how Twitter can be used without having a Twitter account. The first thing that I noticed […]

First off, I love Bitmojis because they have a lot of detail and can really capture specific emotions that regular emojis cannot.  When Apple released the different skin tones for emojis, I thought it was great that they were expanding representation of their audience.  However, the changes did not personally affect me, since my skin tone was the one they were using before.  I can see how people are offended by the emojis and think they have a valid point that the emojis are all the same just with different skin colours.  I agree that emojis should accurately represent people by attributing certain characteristics to different emojis.  However, it seems like that might be too much detail to capture in such a tiny picture.  There is always the default yellow colour to use, or even better, Bitmojis!

I went through my phone’s privacy settings and found that the information my apps have access to is what I expected.  For Location Services, I made sure that for all my apps access was granted only ‘while using’ for the ones that needed it.  For apps that never require my location, I made sure access was always on ‘never.’  I have allowed a lot of apps access to my photos, which surprised me at first but actually makes sense since I upload attachments and the like quite frequently.

When I Googled myself, no results came up (despite my attempt to narrow the search).  Instead, an Indian fashion designer with the same name appeared.  I’m glad that it is not easy to find me through a generic search.

I think that it is super important to be aware of your digital footprint.  It is a lot easier to prevent yourself from posting things than trying to get it off the internet later on.  It is important to make sure that everything you post online (including this blog post that I’m writing now) is an accurate representation of who you are and how you want the world to see you.

I hope that through the 23 Things programme I can learn about various topics in the digital world that will make me a better online citizen.  I did not know that the University had a Social Media Student Handbook.  I found the information very useful and applicable to the way I conduct myself on social media platforms and online in general.

For thing 6: Accessibility, I went through my phone’s accessibility features, after having read the articles. I had no idea that there was such a wide range of features to help people who would have trouble using their phones in the normal settings. Before I had a look at the accessibility features, and after having […]