'It's healthy after all' shock

According to this, there's no need for you to be furtive about it from now on. You can do it quite openly:

It used to be a clandestine act carried out at the computer when no one else was watching, but "self-Googling" - searching for your own name on the internet - has gained social acceptance, with academics and legal experts saying the practice is healthy and fast becoming indispensable.

American researcher Alexander Halavais last month urged all internet users to keep tabs on what was being posted about them on the net, saying it was a 21st-century form of brand management.

The comments sparked an instant fad in the US, with people who consulted search engines surprised to discover they were mentioned on websites ranging from sporting team homepages to business directories.

An Australian internet legal expert last week urged Australians to follow suit, saying it was important for people to keep track of their web presence and know what others were learning about them.

"It's becoming common and if you're not using it you're missing out," John Swinson of Mallesons Stephen Jaques said.

Professor Halavais, a communications professor at Buffalo University, attracted media attention with his call in April for universal self-Googling.

I decided to follow up on this story with some research of my own, so went out on to my street and asked a few passers-by whether they self-Googled. I got some surprising responses, of which I cite a few below:

'Yes, of course. Don't you know how healthy it is for you?'

'No, with me, it's joint Googling or it's nothing.'

'Well...umm... yes. It's socially acceptable now, isn't it?'

'I do, but I'd like to make it clear that I don't subscribe to the theory of universal self-Googling. All Googling, and that includes self-Googling, is culturally specific and also gendered. There's an excellent paper on it by Lesley DeTrobe. He-or-she - that's Lesley I'm talking about, who has renounced maleness and femaleness since June 1999 - there deconstructs the notion of a universalizing universalism, showing this to be a grwelphdoop. The concept of grwelphdoopism is one of DeTrobe's most illuminating accomplishments. Think Foucault, think Derrida, think Dr Susie Nupledor Jr and her black dog Melvy. Of course, 'dog' is itself one of the very grwelphdoops sent packing by DeTrobe, but in the language game 'humans and animals' Melvy is a dog. Anyway, self-Googling while deliciously enjoyable as a social practice - like all social practices, constructed out of always-already... Hey, where are you going? Come back!'

'Doesn't everybody? If I didn't do it I'd feel I was missing out.'

'Bugger off. Haven't you got work to do?'