Do the people (family friends) in your town and daily lives, venture into your online life as well? Does your family know about your blog and read it? Do have 2 facebook accounts? One for your digital life and one for family and friends?
Do you have pseudonyms for your online life? Do you think that protects your privacy some how?
Do you publish/broadcast anything that you want to share with some of your online people/support network, but that you wouldn't want people close to you having details about?
Would how you deal with this crossover aspect change if you had some 'boundary issues' with those that surround you (family/friends/acquaintances?)
I know many of these questions don't have direct answers, but if you could please speak to the subject of them I'd really appreciate it.
I have boundary issues with a few people in my life. At least one person is a close family member and the overstepping of personal boundaries, the implied codependancy, manipulation and feelings of somehow slighting them is something I'm attempting to address, finally, at 40 something years old. This person is a family member and lives close by. And is, for what ever reason, upset that I won't friend her on fb. (my feeling is- we speak more than 10 times a week, see each other no less than 3 times, you know most everything going on, there is no need for fb time!)
Honestly, this isn't the entire reason I'm asking. I'm thinking of the future. Our future. Balancing this digital age with the needs of us, privacy, accessibility, support systems etc. I'd like to know how you handle all this. Thanks.
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| A gifts from members of my support system. Some are tangible. Most are not. Thankful heart. |
6 comments:
I have a major separation of online and offline life. No one I know offline - aside from a handful of other people with my agency - know about my blog or my pseudonym. I have an email account strictly for adoption stuff, and I have from the get go. Sometimes I am tempted to blur the line, to tell a couple of very dear friends about my blog, but I really think I would regret it. I do discuss some of our struggles with close family and friends, but carefully. (And I need to vent sometimes about people who don't get it and don't want friends to read that and get paranoid or defensive!!)
I suspect that someday on this small island, our offline paths with cross with someone who has read my blog. I hope if they suspect, they don't ask but if they do, I will probably lie.
Why? Well, I want to be able to share things about our life without making my son vulnerable. The big thing is I do not want some mean kid to google my son in a decade and read of his struggles.
Part of my worldview is that I have worked in media and my college roommate was stalked. I have had my name and face out there, and I have received death threats when I covered the hate crime beat, so I was paranoid before I had half the concerns about privacy I do now!
The reason my blog is private is specifically so that friends and family cannot read it. I want to be able to speak freely and not have it come back to bite me or my (future) child. My family already has too many opinions on my life as it is!
As far as facebook goes, I use it to stay in contact with friends and family and I've never said no to someone I am currently friends with and/or connect to regularly. I do say no to people I don't know in some context and those I am no longer in touch with. I limit the information available to people whom I don't want to have all the details.
The internet is tricky and family is even trickier!
i am friends with everyone on fb...i don't say anything on there that is too private! you already know that my blog is private because i do want to be able to say anything i want...even though i still haven't let it all out yet! i do know many people that won't friend their parents or other family members for reasons similar to yours!
I haven't kept anything private, as it is mostly my family that reads my blogs. I find it a more comfortable way of sharing what I am going through than to have to keep giving the updates verbally. I do have others drop in on it occasionally, but not to often. As far as facebook, I am really selective about who I friend and what I put on there. My daughter and my nephew, both have two accounts: one for friends and one for family. My daughter has a blog and she does not share it with me. She says it is her way of communicating with the world, but she would be embarrassed if I were to read it.
I have found out that there is no anonymity on the computer. If someone wants to find you, they will. It is a new world that we live in.
aknned@blogspot.com
I am not anonymous at all, anywhere. Early on in my blog, I was sort of semi-anonymous - tried not to give away any identifying details - and yet I still got burned by someone finding my blog and being offended by some things I wrote. Like Annie D said, if someone wants to find you, they will. So now, I don't even bother trying to be private or anonymous, but my rule is that I will not write anything on my blog that I wouldn't also be willing to say to someone in person.
Things are a little trickier now with Elfe...I do think more and more about her privacy, and that is one reason my posting has been a little sparser than it used to be. I am leaning toward starting another blog where I can write about adoption issues more generically without really bringing Elfe into it...
Good luck figuring out your own line, it's tough!
I am the most transparent person on the internet. I'm just not that paranoid. I'm pretty open with who I will have as a friend on FB. One rule since I know lots of younger kids and teens from my coaching days: I never ask a kid to be a FB friend, but I will accept them if they request to be friends. I never say anything on FB that I wouldn't say in public. My blog is public because I like to share. I love that people from all over the world have read my blog. I have actually met some wonderful friends (in real life now) from getting to know them through my blog. I know many people disagree with openness on the internet, but they probably all have unlisted telephone numbers too. :)
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