Digital Footprints

One morning long before
Grown ups had raised a blind
I crept down to the shore
To see what I could find

The tide must never sleep
Because, during the dark
It rises up to sweep
The beach of every mark

There before me lay
Shells in an endless line
And all along the bay
No footprints showed but mine

Sometimes they vanished when
I walked into the sea,
And then appeared again,
Most mysteriously,

As if I were the first to land
On an undiscovered shore,
Which my footprints on the sand
Captured without a war.
by Geoffrey Dutton

Leaving Digital Footprints and Having Digital Tatoos

The world has changed radically since this poem was written. As Jaun Enriquez points out in this video we need to be careful how we walk and stop to consider how we are identifying ourselves and leaving permanent traces behind.

Stop to contemplate your current footprints in cyber space. To really demonstrate the weight of your print try the following exercise.

Make a footprint take off your shoes and socks and put your foot on your journal page. Trace your foot and then carefully draw in the toenails. OR Use the template provided!

Meditate upon your footprint and consider some of the digital footprints that you have left behind, the things that people will find out about you if they ‘Google’ your name. Take a moment and Google yourself!

On each toe, write an impression that you have made, a footprint that you have left behind.

Choose one toe and circle it. On the sole of your foot write more information about this particular event and why it stands out.

Now consider the footprints you are knowingly prepared to leave behind.