Examination of Digital Footprint Awareness Levels and Digital Footprint Experience Status of High School Students

Abstract

The rapid change and development in the field of technology has increased the use of internet and social media by individuals of all age groups. Although the Internet meets many needs in daily life, the fact that every action performed in social media is followed and leaves a trace is over looked. This situation has made the awareness of the digital footprint consisting of scraps of data an important issue. In this context, the aim of the research is; To examine the digital footprint awareness of high school students and their digital life situations. The study group of the research consists of 612 high school students at different levels. Personal Information Form and Digital Footprint Awareness and Lifestyles Scale developed by Sürmelioğlu and Seferoğlu (2019) were used as data collection tools. T-test for in dependent samples, single-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) and SCHEFF test for the distribution of groups with difference were used in the analysis of the data. Research findings show that participants' digital footprint awareness is at a medium level (X̄=3.60) and their digital foot print experiences are at a low level (X=1.80).