A Few Good Reasons To Keep Your Old Social Media Profiles Tidy

Michelle Wilson - July 11, 2019

We are now about 25 years into mass use of the internet in the United States. In that time we have seen quite a few iterations of social media. Even if you started back in the days of Earthlink and AOL, they always had social connections in mind. It’s probably not too surprising for you to hear that most of us have profiles on social media sites that haven’t been updated in years (over a decade?). A lot of us have old accounts just sitting there not being used but full of data.

Here’s the thing. It is VERY important that you take the time to look for and clean up, if not delete, your old profiles. Here are a few good reasons why you’ll want to do just that.

The Old You Isn’t The Same As The New You

Probably not so surprising. We’ve all taken some time to look at old pictures and have had the same thoughts-“Did I really wear my hair like that?”, “Why did anyone let me dress in those clothes?”. Simply put, we grow. We grow as people, our tastes change, and sometimes our social circles change completely. Perhaps in your younger days you had positions on issues that you have now evolved on. No matter what the case is, you’re a different person now and there is no reason to keep that old you in permanent view of the world.

Displaying the old you can have unintended consequences for yourself. Maybe you used to dress all in black, had strange makeup, and spoke primarily about witchcraft (I mean… who among us doesn’t fit this profile…? hahaha), is that the person you want a potential employer to find? Or are you hoping they see today’s version of you? Keep control of your persona by limiting what people can find. Especially from days past.

Harder To Be Located By Loved Ones

If you are anything like me, you have a ton of friends who use social media. And if you are anything like many people, you have social pages that you rarely (if ever) use. If an old friend or loved one is searching for you to reconnect, they are going to have a harder time if you leave breadcrumbs of unused social media accounts laying around the internet. If your connection is looking for you and stumbles upon an older profile that is no longer active, they may misinterpret the page and not realize it’s not current and stop looking for you thinking they have located you. You could completely miss out on connecting with them. Having abandoned profiles just gets in the way.

What Did You Do In Your Early Accounts?

Internet security has always been a thing, sure. But we used to think of it in terms of a virus or malware. We all got an appropriate anti-virus for our computer to run in the background and rarely gave it another thought. You would be completely forgiven if this was you, as this was indeed most of us. But naturally as things grow, things change, and the internet of today is a completely different animal.

That said, we used to post a lot of information on our profiles that would likely make today’s you completely cringe. From your personal data-full name, phone numbers, emails etc- and in some cases possibly even pictures we would never post today. When we are young, we are a bit more naive, for sure. Going back and cleaning up those profiles will help protect your identity moving forward. Using a public records site like CheckPeople to find the available data on yourself will help you stay on top of what needs to be changed and/or deleted all together.

Be The You Of Today

Leaving your old social accounts drifting in the vast seas of the internet is not in your best interest. It is a good idea to deactivate, delete or update those accounts to reflect the you, that you want others to find.

CheckPeople is an amazing tool to help you find the information you have floating around the internet. Keeping your information updated and/or off the internet all together will help make sure you are conveying the persona you want people to know.