What is a digital footprint?

As technology advances and becomes a norm in our society, greater access to personal information is being accessed from companies and social media platforms as we use these sites, which essentially is creating a large trail of personal information that can be accessed off of the internet- which in summary is a digital footprint. When this discovery was coming to society's attention many feared that this would deny them opportunities, especially if there were negative associations with their personal information. However, there are benefits to having a digital footprint, because it allows the individual to prompt the information they are putting out to the world, which people can access. As long as people are aware of this idea of a “digital footprint”, they can choose what information they want to share, that can benefit their futures.