Digital Citizenship, Privacy, and Responsible AI Use
The things most students do not learn about the digital world until something goes wrong
Everything You Post Publicly Online Is Part of Your Record
This is not a threat — it is a fact about how the digital world works. College admissions offices, scholarship committees, employers, coaches, and other decision-makers can and do look at social media profiles. What they find affects decisions about you. For student athletes specifically: coaches conduct routine social media reviews, and scholarship offers have been revoked over social media content. This is documented and it is not rare.
The standard to apply to anything you post publicly: would you be comfortable if your college admissions officer, your future employer, and your grandmother all saw this right now? This is not about being inauthentic. It is about understanding that your public online presence is a presentation of yourself, and you have more control over it than you probably exercise.
What AI companies know about you: When you use an AI tool, you are simultaneously the user and a source of data. The conversations you have, the questions you ask, the topics you return to — all of this is data companies collect. Practical habits: do not enter your full name, school, address, social security number, personal health information, or detailed information about other people into public AI tools.
Misinformation, Deepfakes, and How to Navigate Them
AI-generated media — deepfakes — can produce convincing video of public figures saying things they never said, audio of people's voices saying things they never recorded, and images of events that never happened. These are not science fiction problems. They exist right now and are being used to spread misinformation in political, social, and personal contexts.
Before you share anything — a video, an image, a claim — ask three questions: Where did this come from? Can I find it confirmed by a source I trust independently? What does someone gain from spreading this if it is not true?
Primary source verification: Government websites, established news organizations with editorial standards, academic institutions, and peer-reviewed research are more reliable than anonymous social media posts, websites you have never heard of, and forwarded content without attribution. The fact that something has thousands of shares does not make it true. Misinformation spreads faster than corrections.
Your First Professional Identity
You are building a professional identity right now, whether you are thinking of it that way or not. Your grades, your activities, your social media presence, your reputation among teachers and coaches — all of these form a picture of who you are professionally, and that picture follows you. Start a LinkedIn profile if you have not already. Be thoughtful about what you make public and what you keep private. The student who arrives at college or a job interview with a clear sense of who they are has a genuine advantage.
Ready-to-Use Prompts
Copy these into ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI tool. Adapt for your situation.