Internet Life

How Egocentric Can You Get? The Google Diaries.

47 percent of U.S. adults have looked for information about themselves using search engines

By Vlad Constandes, SEO News Editor

17th of December 2007, 13:38 GMT

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Surfing the web for yourself? Not many better things to do? Really?

I'm guessing it's egocentrism we must be talking about, because I sincerely doubt that there's somebody googling himself for the latest news about himself. In my view of the world, there shouldn't be an article on that written beforehand in order for the person in question to find stuff out from it.

So, what others' reasons could there be for the 47 percent found out about by a report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project Sunday? Well,

they'd want to see who's been talking about them and in what terms. That's for sure. That's not necessarily a bad thing, many people would like to know what others think and act accordingly. What else, the sheer pleasure of writing your name down and seeing that you are somebody, that you have a persona on the Internet, might be a good one, but that's about everything I could think about.

This figure has more than doubled since this survey was last conducted, in 2002, when only 22 percent admitted to searching the Internet for any and all information about themselves. Mathaba.net writes that "the findings reflect how people are sharing more and more of their lives on the Internet, as well as how Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace are encouraging users to post their home videos, photographs and personal profiles online, including data ranging from their favorite movies to their cell phone number."

Well, if that's not entirely normal, at least in my take on the situation, the Internet is also used for positive searches, 36 percent of the adults interviewed admitted to have searched for people they had lost contact with some time ago. Brace yourselves, here comes the good part: 9 percent have dug up information about someone they were dating at the time. What were they expecting to find, reviews, rankings and tops? Marital status or anything on the subject?

Anyway, it looks as though the information about anybody out there is too much to reveal, that's why people have started taking steps to prevent others' access to it, with 38 percent saying that they have already done something about it. Which category are you in? The not caring or the restricting one?

TAGS:

internet | search | engine | find | egocentric

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