I know I said all of this before, but it really is worth repeating.
I believe there will come a time when the technology we now use to stay informed and entertained will be so sensitive that the minute we sign on it will display our moods and our thoughts. And that is when I will opt out of it.
I mean I love social media. I love the way it has allowed me to reconnect with friends from way back in kindergarten and old neighbours who have moved to far flung places or who I just lost touch with and to make some new friends as well.
I know that were it not for social media, I would just never have met some of these folks ever again. In some cases though, I have to wonder if that would have been such a bad thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I like being able to sit down and have virtual chats with several different people at once. I get comfortable, grab something to drink and depending on the time of the day or night, it’s like having tea or a drink with a group of friends I would never have been able to persuade to get together in any one place at any one time. And the beauty of it is that it does not become a din even if we all talk at once. Better yet, Jane does not have to know that I’m talking to Joan at the same time. And as long as I don’t get my wires crossed they will never find out. Nor will I know who else they might be chatting with. Do I care? Ummm, no. It is fun. Mostly.
The thing that gets to me is when friends and followers put too much private information in the public domain. Remember when we used to have friends for different facets of our lives? Like your party friends would not be the same as your book club friends? And there was no way you would have told anyone in either of the aforementioned categories anything about your love life? Can we not go back to the time when we had boundaries?
Think about it. I am a friend of a friend not a close confidant. Do I really need to know what you did last night? In detail? And are you sure you want my friends and their friends, who are not your friends, to know? You see why I am shaking my head?
What I have noticed is that in response to all the details people are putting out there, social media sites are reducing the privacy they offer. That’s why I believe that one day there will be an app that tunes into our thoughts and displays them. I guess the people developing the apps will figure that we’re all okay with letting it all out anyway. But are we? That’s when the person you’re telling “you haven’t changed a bit since college” will know that you’re actually thinking, “what the hell happened to him/her”. Think you’re ready for that?
Listen, as exciting as you think your life is, I don’t want to be all up in your business. Honestly. I would rather not know. And just so you know, these things have a way of coming back to haunt you. Stuff you put out there in the virtual world stays there. Last I heard, the World Wide Web had a no-recall policy. Years down the road, you might regret much of what rolls off your fingertips without as much as a moment’s thought. Think. And put the brakes on.
You know you can still let it all out with your besties. There is such a thing as an inbox. There is messaging, which is private too. There’s also BBM and WhatsApp for the conversations which should be one on one or two, but for heaven’s sake no more than three!
