Life As An Open Book.

Dear Danah Boyd,

I found your article to be a very interesting read. Facebook and social media is such a sketchy topic and an interesting culture to be involved with. This is because we as individuals are providing others, possibly strangers, to understand who we are as person without even knowing who we really are sometimes. Through social media we provide others with a window into our lives. And sometimes, you never know who is looking through the window; it could be our neighbors creepy ten year old kid, or the guy across the street who has a garden full of tomatoes, or some foreign guy trying to learn about American college life. You brought up the topic of situational power and I think that is in fact true. Tweets can never be deleted, and what you upload out of anger or frustration may in some way come back to haunt you. I completely agree that privacy norms have changed and sometimes people open others into their lives. But what I think is creepy is the fact that someone could already know who you are without you even exchanging words with them. You never know if someone on the bus is reading your timeline on Twitter and knows all the music you like or what you did over the weekend. How weird would it be if you just meet some random person for the first time and they're like "Oh how did you like that new Kid Cudi album, I saw you tweet about it." Maybe it's just me, but I find that a little creepy. Also I think social media is causing people to lose a physical presence in terms of conversation. Behind the internet and the screens of cell phones and laptops people have the ability to talk to people who they may normally be shy to talk to in person.

Social Media is weird like that. People that you had a class with in high school are friends with you on Facebook and thus see your updates about where you were and what you did. And you guys haven't talked in years. Your examples about the two teenage girls and Facebook are good ones as to how people accept the fact that they are being watched. We know people read through comment feeds and in fact are reading whole conversations between people. People read what comments others post on pictures. Facebook is just all too open for me, I've been back in forth in my head about actually deleting mine because I'm simply drawing away from it. Especially after the latest update, Facebook is a stalkers paradise. Yea I said that, a stalkers paradise. You can see in real time who is commenting on what, who likes what, who's had a baby, who's in a relationship with who, and so on and so forth. We allow people to read us like an open book, so what is privacy?

P.S. Kid Cudi's album was okay, not nearly as good as Man on The Moon.