I have an interesting topic to write on today... Privacy.
First of all, this is not a rant, nor is it an excuse. It will be an explanation and an examination. I will start out with a fact, followed by a story... and I hope you all see the irony. Fact: Tim and I are very, very private people. We prefer not to share much about our personal lives with people outside our families or our friends. We are more than happy to publicly obsess over Walt Disney World and our trips there, discuss books and film, fun restaurants and adventures we've experienced, but that is about as far as it goes. Our hopes, dreams, fears, frustrations, etc. our aspects of our life we prefer to share only with those close to us. Funny enough, our first date was to see a play at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier in Chicago, IL called Private Lives by Noel Coward. Great show, by the way - awfully funny.
This idiosyncrasy is why I find myself avoiding blogging. Each time I think, "Jenna, you should post something on the blog, its been awhile." All I can think is that I do not want to broadcast my life to the greater internet audience. Some parts, sure, but others... not so much. Then, I look at other blogs and on Facebook and see that others have no problem posting about the same topic that gave me pause. Am I the minority? Are there more people like Tim and I that maintain a "public life" and a "private life"? Probably.
There is nothing wrong with openly sharing on social media. All that matters is posting what you feel comfortable sharing with everyone you know (and strangers too depending on your privacy settings). In fact, sometimes I wish I was more comfortable with it - social media provides an excellent vehicle to voice opinions and to find others who are like minded, or even to find those who disagree and broaden your own horizons. However, I grow very nervous when I think that posting that 113 word rant about ultra-conservative politics is going to illustrate to the world that I am a moderate or a liberal (I will not say which I am). Having been raised in a home where political beliefs are not necessarily a matter to be discussed in polite conversation, I naturally hesitate to post that rant. Or, when I stop myself from a public feminist rampage when I read a status on Facebook that states women who pursue careers outside of raising a family are somehow further from God because they abandon their "God-given feminine" attributes in order to succeed in the business world. Aside from the hypocrisy of that response, the world would then see me for a raging atheist and feminist (which is not necessarily true).
Social media has given a voice to so many people out there who otherwise would be afraid to share those opinions and that is amazing. It has connected people across the nation and even across the globe in ways never before imagined, but is all this connectedness really a positive phenomenon? Is it actually "progress" that I now know an acquaintance of mine just had a massive argument with her boyfriend of two-minutes and is not sure if they are going to make it? Like any new technology, social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and even Blogger and other blogging domains bring new ways of improving the world around us, but they also bring with a need for a redefinition of social interaction as we know it. New social guidelines and suggestions for polite web-based social interaction must be discovered and learned. Or maybe the world around me is just changing and I am the backwards one. Who knows?
Okay, maybe that did turn into a bit of a rant. However, I think that there is quite a feast for thought. And I also think that I certainly blog to my little hearts content while still maintaining a distinction between our "public lives" and our "Private Lives".
Thanks for sticking with me :) and tune in next time for a new recipe that I came up with on Sunday!
