Living Life Online
The internet has some fantastic properties about it, doesn’t it? For one, folks seem to be endlessly compelled to publicize details about their life that they might otherwise take with them to their graves. Why do we do it? What is it about this series of tubes that turns us into such exhibitionists? Everyone’s a blogger, or on Myspace or Facebook or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I haven’t quite figured out if this is a good thing or not.
Doesn’t she look sinister?
Yesterday, living life online was taboo; today it’s only slightly abnormal; tomorrow it will be as mundane as email. Are we, as a society, becoming more open to the idea of zero privacy? Is this healthy? Some might look at stories such as the drunken pirate chick and say, No! The voluntary erosion of our privacy is not healthy and good, look how this woman’s reputation has been sullied! If only she had just kept her celebratory indiscretions to herself, her future students wouldn’t be exposed to such debauchery, and could be kept pure and innocent!
Bah.
I’m not going to go into the injustice of this case; it’s been covered ad nauseum the past few weeks. However, I will point out that these are just growing pains, with more to come. Just wait until the first member of the myspace generation (God, I hope it’s not actually called that) runs for President! With virtually every day of his or her formative years documented online, it won’t be difficult to dig up dirt on anyone. So easy, in fact, that it will no longer surprise or even interest us. As we all become celebrities in our own right, we’ll stop putting people on pedestals and expecting them to do no wrong. These new relaxed expectations will encourage people to be even more open and honest, and so the cycle continues.
So, you see, living life online may seem like a scary concept at first, especially to those of us who are traditionally more fond of our supposed “privacy” than others, but it will benefit us all in the end. Openness and transparency are good for any system; it’s just hard to get the ball rolling sometimes. So, here goes.
I’m 27 years old, I live in Frisco, Texas with my wife of six years, Lydia, seven month old son, Simon, Wally the dog, and cats Jerry and Buddy. I’m a programmer, database and systems administrator, and all around *nix geek (here’s my resume).
My name is Lee Teague, and this is my life.
