tmi?

today we're talking about sharing stories on the internet with people we don't know well or at all and whether or not that's a good idea.

i think the content we share is the important consideration here.

this article from NPR asks some interesting questions:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/08/30/140056318/your-friends-are-not-your-audience-a-disturbing-internet-lesson-in-perspective?sc=fb&cc=fp

sorry for the ugly URL, but i've never learned to shorten them. anyone wanna teach me? :)

link

ha, i just figured it out. you type text, highlight it, and then click the little linked chain at the top, then put in the URL of the site you wanna link. very cool. and you were here to experience my learning with me. wasn't that awesome? *rolls eyes*

anyway - i found that article really interesting, and it makes you think about what you post on the internet, especially in a forum like google plus where you're "friends" with 100's or even 1000's of people that you do not know in real life.

however, i disagree with the very last sentence. i think it's good that this content was shared because it might lead to the guy who shared his story, eric, learning that his behavior, real or embellished, is not appropriate. and maybe lots and LOTS of people who read this article will learn the same thing.

by way of example, there is a book called "undateable" that talks about all of the things that guys do that make them unlikely to find a date. as i read the book, there were several things that made me go "hm. really? that's bad? i do that..." and i reconsidered several things and have changed a couple. some i decided were just "me" and i kept them. but some of them were unexamined things i did that i'd picked up here or there, and reading that book was kinda like looking in a mirror and seeing things about myself for the first time.

maybe the eric story will do that for people who think that the behavior he talks about is ok.

if so, then i think it's worth the discomfort that many feel (including the person who wrote the NPR article) in reading the story or watching the video.

thoughts?