I'm on Google!

I am pleased to say I am on Google. When someone types in "Adam Kornbluh" into Google, almost all of the results on the first page are webpages that refer to me directly. Some of these sites are my Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger accounts. Others are old news articles about baseball or my DECA accomplishments in high school. After the initial shock of being found, I had some time to reflect on the ease of which the few webpages out of the billions on the Internet could be pulled in a matter of milliseconds. Fortunately, all my articles are positive or neutral, so it didn't particularly bother me that anyone could search my name and find these sites. In addition, none of the sites are revealing my personal information or anything else that could be potentially harmful. Because of this, I don't really mind being "Google-able" and actually find it humorous.

However, the ease of which I found myself demonstrates how simple it is for the public to learn potentially negative things about someone if it has ever been published on the web. Although an entertaining gimmick, being searchable on Google has far more disadvantages than advantages. To be honest, the only real benefit to being searchable is if you are trying to become famous. Disadvantages include the fact that if you have anything damaging on the web, possible employers, education institutions, and anyone else can see it. In addition, deleted webpages are still reconcilable. Google's handy "Cache" feature archives websites to preserve them even after they are deleted. Overall, I'd say that one's searchability on Google is more of a liability than a source of pride, unless of course you want to be the next Real World star.