Much to the shock of many, I am actually an introverted person. I sometimes push myself out of my comfort zone by initiating conversations, attending or organizing group functions. To the many who only know me as an outgoing or even boisterous person, it is false bravado on my part. They are my over compensating tactics to keep me from crawling into a corner to hide.I am a also mostly a private person; my blogging and use of social networks started as a way to keep my family connected with what I had been up to. Sharing photos online appeals to my cheapskate and time saving self. Taking time to write out my thoughts allows me to get the words that I want down properly even if there are misspellings and grammatical errors. Posting at my pace felt like I wasn't bombarding anyone via email nor failing to keep on a schedule like a regular newsletter. I talk to very few people I know via telephone. Yes, I have held many jobs and volunteer positions where people call me for information but for me to call someone for a personal reason takes a lot of psyching myself up. For all of these reasons the Internet seemed like a good place to put out information for family and close friends to catch up with me at their leisure.
Social networks are abused in many ways. For those of you that don't read After Image here is a great compilation of the topic compiled last October. I have been spotted on the street by people whom I haven't met. I have been recognized because they were avid readers of my blog. Thank goodness we had also exchanged extensive emails and I had a pretty good sense that they were very decent people when they sent me an email saying they had seen me on campus.
It has been odd to have people whom I know little about comment to me in person on topics that only my my posts cover and I had not yet shared with them as individuals. I tell myself that I have nothing to hide from the world so it's fine.
The real drawbacks for me started when rude and abrasive comments were made on this blog. I decided to moderate what could be posted. Although it would be clear to any reader that some people who disagreed with my posts had no decorum in handling their opposing opinions I also knew it could upset my family to read them at all. I really didn't think it was appropriate to encourage smart aleck responses that just foster ill feelings. I have probably only deleted a handful of comments on this blog and my Facebook account but each decision made me lose hours and hours of sleep.
I also decided to modify some settings on Facebook. I was being approached by many people with whom I had no desire to (re)connect with so I amended my privacy settings. I was reading very upsetting barbs as comments to myself, family and friends so I found how to "block" them. Facebook still keeps changing how it is set up and I constantly must make certain I am aware to update my settings.I was also realizing that some contacts (Facebook calls them "friends") were posting things about themselves that I didn't really want to know or see. I added filters so I wouldn't see what online games they were engaged in, hunting photos of deer carcasses they were proud of or religious anthems they wanted to post.
One terribly misogynist comment on how my one contact was manipulating women at his place of business made me decide that maybe I didn't want to be connected with him even peripherally. This made me realize that I had probably added contacts more as a collection of people I know or knew at one time. I had lost the focus of connecting with family and close friends with whom I rarely get to visit. I got rid of my Twitter account at that point.
Every time I post a photo on Facebook I have to filter who can see it. Believe it or not, my family has some semi-celebrity people in it and in some circles they have stalkers. Allowing "friends of friends" to see tagged photos of family gatherings is not an option.
At the point I had to set up categories of contacts so they would filter properly is where I started to draw the line. I hated to have to make a judgment call as to whom I trusted to see certain photos or posts. I found myself wondering if I knew someone well enough not to casually mention when I was going out of town within earshot of random people and just started eliminating contacts over the months. I eliminated people whom I didn't know well enough or had showed less discretion in conversations I had with them. This process is subjective and is also intuitive.
Where some people see social networking as a tool to generate topics for what to talk about in face to face conversations, I have always been stupidly shocked that someone knows private things about me that I have forgotten I have posted on the Internet. I find that I have a feeling of mental vertigo in situations like this because I can not remember sharing the information with someone who is (out of context and without frame of reference) trying to connect with me.
It surprised me when it caused misunderstandings with a few people who felt they had done something to be disconnected. My explanation of using the social network differently appeased all but two people. The one could not understand why I did not want to reconnect with them after 20 years and the other equates eliminating a contact with eliminating friendship. Both admitted to wanting to know what I was up to. It felt stalker-esque from the international contact but just silly from the local one. I refuse to be pressed to justify my choices but the ripples of discontent they have cast have me considering Facebook Suicide.
A very kind woman I know lent me a book on understanding various personality types. I wasn't able to give it as much attention as I wanted to but it drew to my attention to an aspect of myself I hadn't really examined before. I am going to try to stay aware and hope I will be able to find a balance between not participating in things at all and entrenching myself so deeply that I can't get out gracefully. I think the trick is going to be looking very carefully at prospects, situations and even potential friendships before committing to them and being cautious about my enthusiasm levels. With any luck, I will find some middle ground well before I get to the point of having to ditch projects completely while hurting or disappointing myself and others in the process.
