In the old days … when I first started creating my own sites and putting stories and pictures online … I thought I was anonymous. And for the most part I was.
My friends certainly didn’t spend a lot of time online and it seemed that the majority of people that ever looked at my pages where those people that I only communicated with online and those that were standing next to me, that I made look at whatever cool new logo, design, page I had created.
That has all changed. Now my Mom reads my blog – and comments! (Thanks Momma, love you)
So I find myself being a lot more careful about what I say – and what I do not say.
Which is a new reality for me as .. air supply .. had always been the online version of the diary that lives under my bed.
And that diary is still there.
Keeping up with blogging and writing and twittering takes a little time.
And whilst I am blogging, I am on the lookout for information that might be useful to my Scuba Diving students and friends on DiveMistress as well as talking about whats going on with me.
As I see the statistics rise on this site – particularly New Zealand (and Auckland visitors), I consider that I probably know a few of these people and so I wonder if I should put paid to the days where I would write exactly how I feel and what I have been doing and choose to censor it?
But then were does the reality go?
When I read a blog, I read it to hear about the person – or to learn about them – OR to marvel at the shit that they get up to.
And some of the more; juicy shall we say, blogs that I read are the ones that I tend to add to my RSS reader so that I can keep up to date and spend some time enjoying their writing.
Hopefully a write engages with their readers.
An article comes across as a story or a conversation that could be held over coffee – or in my case Wine. It is a story I might tell whilst blushing or I might finish it with a rushed “But for gods sake don’t tell my Mom”
Which – as a matter of interest – always happens. I end up telling Mom everything.
With so much of what we do and think being uploaded to Facebook and Twitter, and with that extending its tentacles out in to our every day lives, I know its only a matter of time before someone calls me up and says “You wrote <insert salacious comment here> on your blog … What the? Why the? You are a bad bad kitty”
Of course if the story, comment, whatever above had the good old “please dont tell anyone / this is a secret / etc etc” then of course I would keep my mouth and fingers shut.
And no – I DON’T write about EVERYTHING that happens to me online. I just like to share.
So what is there for me to be afraid of?
Not a whole lot it seems. Unlike the teacher in the USA :
The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article on April 27, 2007 entitled “A MySpace Photo Costs a Student a Teaching Certificate” about Stacy Snyder[29]. She was a student of Millersville University of Pennsylvania who was denied her teaching degree because of an unprofessional photo posted on MySpace, which involved her drinking with a pirates’ hat on and a caption of “Drunken Pirate”. As a substitute, she was given an English degree. Source : Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_privacy
The most that I have to risk is that someone might not choose to dive with me.
Or I might hurt someone’s feelings even if there are no names. Is there more?
I have not solved this question for myself. Perhaps I will ease you all into it.
