Before understanding the importance of ‘Digital Hygiene’, first, let us know about it.
Digital hygiene is also termed as internet hygiene or cyber hygiene. From this, you might have
gotten a hint from the term itself that it is the Digital Behaviour and practice of keeping your
digital world clean and up-to-date.
In today’s fast growing tech-savvy world, we consume a lot of digital content through devices
like mobile, the very handy, laptop or computers. When everything is getting online, everyday,
we access multiple apps like social media or playing games or visit a number of websites or surf
at least 5 things over the internet in our everyday routine. What we forget here is that we are
leaving our Digital Footprints there by sharing our details to those websites in the form of
cookies, remembering passwords on different browsers, etc. And therefore, it is a must to
improve your digital health and online security.
So first, think about all the activities you practice in your day-to-day life on a regular basis over
the internet. This simply means that our data, our privacy and our confidentiality is being
accessible through the internet. And, can cause greater damage if not taken care of. It’s high
time to be more aware of our own Digital Behaviour in this fast paced digital world.
Here are 3 steps you should start practicing from today to keep your information safe and
improve your Online Behaviour.
1. Back up Frequently - You may lose your data if your cyber hygiene is poor like misplaced
files, losing data with corrupted files. Having all your important data backed up to any
secondary source like your computer’s hardware or your online cloud storage. It is
always recommended to avoid any unwanted breaches in future.
2. Up-to-date Software - Since you might be using multiple software very often, it is better
to keep in pace with the newest update of the software/app so that your digital behaviour
synchronizes well with the latest technology.
3. Change your password - To avoid any kind of malicious activity in your digital world, it
becomes very important to change thy password at intervals as you are leaving your
Digital Footprints by surfing multiple things online. that could be once in a month or
three months.
Just like we are aware about our physical and mental hygiene, our digital hygiene should also
regularly be addressed to stave off the common threats and natural retrogression. Thus, having
a regular check on your daily Digital Behaviour is a must.
Get started with a minimum practice of these 3 steps as stated above, and you are good to take
care of your Digital Footprints to maintain a healthy and internet safe digital diet.