Finding Your Data
Click on the links below for directions on how to view your data on each site.
Google: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/all-the-data-google-has-on-you
Google ads specifically: https://gizmodo.com/find-out-what-google-thinks-you-want-to-see-in-ads-and-1677941497
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/1701730696756992?helpref=hc_global_nav
Facebook ad preferences specifically: https://www.facebook.com/help/247395082112892
Instagram: https://help.instagram.com/181231772500920
Apple: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/find-out-what-data-apple-has-on-you/
If you have another site you want to look at, let me know and I can find directions for you!
Analyzing Your Data
During class or after class for homework, write up answers to the following questions (and email them to me or post them to the blog):
- What did you find about yourself?
- What surprised you?
- What was accurate, and what was not accurate?
- What changes do you want to make to your privacy settings, if any?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of websites keeping this data on you?
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
What did you find about yourself?
I found out that I spend most of my time on instagram.
What surprised you?
The thing that surprised me was that instagram has the exact date and times I joined instagram, answered a poll, etc.
What was accurate, and what was not accurate?
I believe that everything is accurate.
What changes do you want to make to your privacy settings, if any?
I would not want to change anything in my privacy settings because my account is already private.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of websites keeping this data on you?
The disadvantage of websites keeping this data on me is that they know my interests and know exactly when i do things. i do not believe that there is an advantage of websites keeping data about me.
While finding my data, I learned that I always stick to the same person and I’m not too public about my life. For example most of the things I post are vague and are never too open about myself. Most of the people I follow I know from somewhere either my neighborhood, school or from an event I attended.
Something that surprised me were the amount of times I changed my password on Instagram like I’ve had about 8 password changes and I don’t even recall changing my password this many times.
I felt that the ad section wasn’t accurate because it mentioned fashion and make up and those are the least things I like to watch. Now something that was a little more accurate would be the hip hop section because I follow many rappers.
There aren’t any changes I would make to my privacy changes, my account is currently private and I know who is viewing my account and who isn’t.
– What did you find about yourself?
Apparently i listen to a lot of different types of music because in the “Ad Interest” section, I had music ads from different places in the world (Electronic Music, Popular Music, Country Rap, Midwest HipHop, Ultra Music Festival, Underground HipHop, African-American Music). It also showed that I apparently had a lot of interest in the arts (Performing Arts, Arts and Music, Music Festivals, Hair Care, Hairstyle, Visual, Arts, Travel Photography).
What surprised you?
What surprised me was the fact that they can have all this information about me saved, and most people are oblivious about it. It’s scary how so much information is accurate, but then again a lot of it is not accurate (probably due to searching something up once because i was curious.
What was accurate, and what was not accurate?
It had a lot of christian things in my “Ad Interest” section, and I’m not even christian… It had a lot of artists in my Ads that I do listen to. Ever since I started going to John Jay, more Midtown Manhattan, Central Park, and Psychology things have been popping up on my phone.
What changes do you want to make to your privacy settings, if any?
I would want to stop Ads from popping up on my phone, but that’s very hard for it to happen.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of websites keeping this data on you?
The advantages is that i get stuff that relate to me and the disadvantages are the fact that they have too much information about me.
What did you find about yourself?
Surprisingly, I am extremely into cars. When it comes to performance and different modifications. Lots of things that came up were intake filters, cooling air systems, different turbo manufacturers, wheels, coils and air suspensions, different cars for sale, and lots of kits.
What surprised you?
What really surprised me is how many ads came up. Whether its on my laptop or on my phone, my entire Instagram feed and google web searches are filled with ads relating to the automotive world. I didn’t really think much of it but now I see that these corporations don’t know how to mind there own business.
What was accurate, and what was not accurate?
What I say is accurate would be the car ad’s and shoes ads and stuff like that. What I think wasn’t accurate would be the dating websites ads that came up a couple times. I’m not even looking to dive into the pool cause I am in a good point in life. I never even searched up anything that has to do with relationships but somehow google is trying to hook me up. It’s so weird that they put random ads on the side and how they put stuff that interest you to.
What changes do you want to make to your privacy settings, if any?
First thing I would definitely do is turn on ad blocker. I’d also clear my search history and I will most definitely start using incognito more often.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of websites keeping this data on you?
The only advantage they have would be that they know if I tap on something. The only disadvantage would be if I use incognito cause then they won’t know if I tapped on the ad or not.
1. What did you find about yourself?
What I found was that there was not any personal information on my accounts that other people would know about me besides people who know me personally. Honestly I only have people that know in real life. Couldn’t really find anything that interesting since it lacked personality.
2. What surprised you?
What was kind of surprising was how I was cautious of following people and letting other people follow me on Instagram. For example, on Instagram I would only follow my friends or people that I actually know whereas Facebook I have a lot more friends about 1,400 which is way more than Instagram. I was more cautious on Instagram than Facebook when Facebook sells personal information and people get easily access your information.
3. What was accurate, and what was not accurate?
There wasn’t enough personal information to decide whether its accurate or not besides my birthday that I put on both Facebook and Instagram which was inaccurate because I put a fake birthday.
4. What changes do you want to make to your privacy settings, if any?
Changes I could make would be setting my social media accounts into private accounts, that way companies and other people in general would not have access to any personal information I post. For websites and/or search engines I would stop using the feature in which the device or website would save your passwords so it would make it easier to login. If you were to use this feature not only does it make it easier to access your accounts but it could potentially
5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of websites keeping this data on you?
The advantages of websites and/or social media keeping personal information would be you would targeted ADs from product that interest you which could possibly lead you to buying the product and in return businesses gain money. For social media it would be the same thing as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat also put ADs. Your feed on social media would be customized especially for you, since social media platforms put certain things that you are most interested in seeing. For example, Instagram’s explore page is what Instagram thinks you want to see. The disadvantage would be websites that have any personal information about you could potentially sell it to other companies in order to increase their sales or know what people like. Social media also does this as recently Facebook has been caught in a scandal that the company sold people’s information in order to help with the presidential elections.
I found out that contrary to what I thought, I haven’t changed much about my profile on instagram, besides switching it to public and private a few times.
I found out that I was a smart kid and didn’t have dumb bios like half the girls my age around the time instagram was coming out. I found out that contrary to what I thought, I haven’t changed much about my profile on instagram, besides switching it to public and private a few times. I wasn’t really surprised by what I was seeing, since I know that I didn’t really mess around with instagram so much. And so because of that everything it was showing me was pretty much accurate, it would’ve been different if I was constantly changing and fixing my account. However as of right now, I see that the privacy settings I currently have doesn’t really affect me so i’ll just keep it how it is.
When websites have this data the disadvantage is that they try to find certain ads and videos to show you while scrolling so that you’ll stop and visit them and in our helping them and other companies make money off of it. In addition to this whatever you put down no matter if you think you changed it/ deleted it will always be found somewhere. The only advantage I can say that it has is that if you miss a certain detail or are ever wanting to know how addicted to stuff you are, you can go and see what you’ve done on the website and that can help change your habits.
What did you find about yourself?
– I found out that I rarely used to use Instagram as often until senior year of high school. I see
What surprised you?
– what surprised me had to be that Instagram knows a whole lot of things about me most likely based on my hash tag searches or the people I follow. I feel like there’s over 100 things Instagram thinks I am into.
What was accurate and what was not?
– I found most of the information very accurate because they thought I was into things like hair, clothing, memes and other things. Things that I probably think about throughout the day
What changes do you want to make to your privacy settings, if any?
– I wouldn’t make any changes really because they don’t track your locations in your data, and if they were I’d probably change it because that’s way too much information about me.
– Some advantages are the phone numbers you’ve had on the site are kept. Incase you want to figure out your old number or numbers that may be linked to other accounts you may have. Followers may be a good thing because you can see everyone you have entered in your data world