Exposed

Emily Gould is an over sharer when it comes to blogging. Her job was to blog gossip about celebrities, and in her free time, she voluntarily put intimate details of her life on the internet as well. She built up a respectable fan base on both of the blogs and loved the attention that she was getting from them.

Her boyfriend, Henry, was more of an anti-blogger and barely got on the internet. When they broke up and she started dating a guy from work, she created a new blog with her friend. They used aliases, but wrote about their personal relationships. Soon, followers figured out who was writing the blog, and the details of real relationships in her life were exploited. Emily was so obsessed with blogging, that she sometimes ranked it ahead of her real life relationships, and put them in jeopardy.

Self expression is a part of human nature. But taken too far, and it can become over sharing. I have a friend on Facebook who writes 1,000 word blogs about himself nearly weekly, and it’s really unnecessary. Some are interesting, but he always goes into way too much personal detail. I was reminded of him when I read Gould’s Exposed.

Personally, I don’t blog much, maybe a few times a year. If you put your whole life story on the internet, then what is there to talk about when you hang out with your friends? I mean, they already know everything that happened to you this week because you’ve written it in your blog. And most things, I don’t want just anybody to know, because it’s my personal life. I feel like real communication happens when two people, or a group of people talk, or text, send emails. Compulsive blogging is just a way of desperately seeking attention from anyone who will listen. There isn’t much interaction happening.

Emily is an extreme example of how much the internet can take over your life if you let it. Our generation puts out a dangerous amount of information about ourselves on the internet. Not dangerous like identity theft, or scam, but dangerous in that blogging and other networking sites reveal a shocking amount of personal information that you may regret one day, like Emily.

I’m not against all forms of blogging. As I said before, I do blog a few times a year. It’s great when you are sharing useful information with others, like reviewing albums and books, and sharing recipes, or even just writing a small blurb on the last few months of your life. But becoming addicted to exploiting yourself on a regular basis is another thing all together. For me, it’s more important to focus on real life relationships instead of blogging about them.