- Lloyd Alexander
Can I ask you a question? Or thirty-eight?
Do you ever wonder about a subject, unable to find any clear answers?
Can I share a topic I've been pondering lately? All in the form of questions since I don't have any answers?
Where is the line between maintaining a sense of privacy and letting others into your life enough to be able to connect?
How much online sharing (Facebook, Twitter, Blogging) is too much?
Is there a danger in sharing too much? Do the details of my life really need to be out there for all to see? If I share those details with the world, does that make the events less special for me? For those involved in the event in real life? Am I cheapening my life by sharing everything with everyone?
Is it possible to put my children at risk by oversharing about them? When they finally venture into the cyber world, will they be happy that their faces are already all over the internet? Will they appreciate pictures of them in a diaper or some other situation that might be an embarrassment when they try to create their own cyber presence? Will the pictures/tweets/status updates that are cute now be cute to them someday? Do I realize that what I post cannot be unposted? What about the "friends" that see these pics, etc? Am I really sure that they are the same person I knew way back when? Can I be certain that there is not a predator on my list of "friends" or "followers"? Is any of this really worth putting that picture of my cutie out there for all to see? What is gained by posting? What is lost by not posting? What is preserved by keeping it private?What about my family as a whole? If I want what happens in our home to be special, do I cheapen it by sharing it with the whole world? How much is too much? At what point are there more than just us in the house because I've invited my whole world of cyber "friends" to come for dinner?
But without sharing, can there be real connections? Don't all great speakers/writers expose a slice of themselves to connect with their audience? Can I connect with my audience without sharing? If so, how? If not - if sharing is required - how much is necessary? If I want to be real and genuine and also maintain a boundary of public/private, where is the line?
Have you ever given any of this any thought? Or do you just post whatever comes to mind with no thought to the consequences?
Can you tell that I have been giving this a lot of thought? If you have thought about it, would you please share with me?
