Judge a Book By Its Cover?
Right now, at this very instant, it is very easy for you to find out a lot about me. Or about Campo, or *, or Teagan, or any number of your or my friends. The internet, and the amount of information that each of us feels comfortable posting allows you that luxury. Whether it is via public blogs, such as this, or marginally more private social networking sites, or micro-blogging outlets like Twitter, we put a lot of information out there. I know a lot of things right now about my friends’ lives that even two years ago I wouldn’t know without asking. What someone is watching, working on, worrying about, or dreading: all public information.
One question that this has always raised in my mind is “why?” Why would someone want to put significant portions of their private life in the public for all to see? Take, for example, the especially revealing and particularly well written blog by Harvard ‘09 Lena Chen Sex and the Ivy. Lena reveals intimate details that, were I in her place, I would probably not mention to even my closest friends. So, is it a cathartic creative outlet? Public service? Exhibitionism? All of these are legitimate reasons, but I just don’t get it entirely, at least not on Lena’s scale. Personally, I began maintaining this web page as a portal for my portfolio, a means to interest employers. I have posted pictures and written posts mostly because I find it interesting to do so. I don’t think it’s really a call for attention so much as “If I find it interesting, maybe someone else will.” And, as I write this, I suppose it is possible that is exactly where every blogger comes from, though I suspect the reasons for blogging, micro-blogging, and social networking posts are as varied as the many blogs and profiles.
The temptation, I think, is to form opinions about people from their many posts and profiles. To like or dislike, respect or discount a person based upon the information they have posted is tempting. Everyday we judge each other by our the cover of our facebook. At the same time, though, it is easy to forget that even as the internet provides vehicles for faster and more detailed updates, the time lag is still high and bandwidth low. Profiles and posts often can’t begin to approach telling of the whole story, no matter what we may think. It is this fact that I think is increasingly overlooked in today’s world.
November 13th, 2007
does this mean you have a twitter account i get to follow now? you know there’s nothing in my life i need more than to know where my bpope is and what he’s doing via sms.
November 16th, 2007
i’m a big believer of gladwell’s books and I think that, unfortunately, no matter what, people will pass judgement at the blink of an eye. And scarily enough, it seems that first impressions are correct for the majority of the time. With stats like that, who cares about “the whole story”?
November 17th, 2007
Kudos, great post.
Just a note on:
“I don’t think it’s really a call for attention so much as ‘If I find it interesting, maybe someone else will.’ And, as I write this, I suppose it is possible that is exactly where every blogger comes from …”
That is actually pretty close to where I came from when I started my blog. Even though it probably doesn’t seem like it nowadays, I only intended for my audience to be my friends when I first created the website. On the other hand, I’m not particularly bothered by readership from strangers, perhaps because I plan on making a career out of writing, especially columns and first-person narratives.
November 18th, 2007
[...] So, this anecdote was fresh on my mind when I came across MIT senior Ben Pope’s insightful post on his blog about judging people based on their online profiles and identities. (Confession: I found his post because it mentions my blog and I subscribe to Google alerts for “Lena Chen”): “The temptation, I think, is to form opinions about people from their many posts and profiles. To like or dislike, respect or discount a person based upon the information they have posted is tempting. Everyday we judge each other by our the cover of our facebook. At the same time, though, it is easy to forget that even as the internet provides vehicles for faster and more detailed updates, the time lag is still high and bandwidth low. Profiles and posts often can’t begin to approach telling of the whole story, no matter what we may think.” [...]
December 20th, 2007
Great post. I will have to check out that blog you mentioned.