Identity, Legacy and Social Networking

Assuming that computers and general electricity will still be around after my generation dies (and that we aren't all annihilated by the zombie apocolypse...) social networks will no doubt continue to flourish and I have recently come to the terrifying conclusion that this is what we will pass on to our children.

Twitter will be what they remember us by; Facebook will be our legacy.

I really do not know much about computers and the infinite abyss of time and space that exists within them. But I know they say once you put it up there's really no taking it down. In other words, even if you think you deleted that picture of you drunkenly doing a naked keg stand... somewhere, somehow it still exists. And it can be found with a few simple clicks.

Whatevs. I heart Instagram.

It's cool and petrifying but quickly becoming an accepted side effect of the internet.  We're not going to stop using it so we may as well accept that whatever we chose to put out there will stay out there forever.

But what scares me, for reasons I can't quite put into words yet, is that these social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter... those will be what we leave our children to remember us by. Once upon a time people left behind journals where they recorded their thoughts so that their ancestors could one day know a part of them. They would write a line just to get it down and see the words in front of them.

Nowadays we update our status.
But there's an essential piece of the beautiful process of recording one's thoughts missing from our technologically advanced lives. The act, no, rather the art of writing is the entire process of physically picking up the pen and watching as the thoughts in your head form letters and words on a page in front of your very eyes. That thought then stays with you and you begin analyzing it in an entirely new way. That does not happen when you type something. It just doesn't.

A slightly more accurate name...

But the fundamental difference between leaving behind a journal and leaving behind a facebook is that one is incredibly private while the other is inevitably public.

And the problem with social networking sites is that we often depict ourselves the way we wish to be seen... rather than the way we actually are. Few people flaunt their flaws on Twitter or reveal their deepest secrets on their facebook page... and if they do, they are immediately and rightfully chastised. It's not the place to share that information.

But between facebook and twitter or tumblr and pinterest, people only share things that they wish other people to know. I may tweet about my love for Norman Reedus or post pictures of myself doing ridiculous things... but those are things I don't mind people knowing or seeing.

I would not, for instance, blog about having explosive diarrhea because that is something I'd rather keep to myself.  (Oops...)

But my point is this:

I blog. I tweet (though no one follows me so it doesn't really matter). I facebook. But I also keep a journal.

I realized the other day that I'm not sure anyone truly knows me... the way I know myself.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I can talk endlessly about pretty much anything... But when I read the private things I write to myself, I often realize those are things I don't really want to share. They're mine. And the second I reveal them to someone else I'm placing my precious thoughts and words at the mercy of someone else's judgment.

It's petrifying. Just posting this blog (that really only my few close friends and family read) to facebook gave me a panic attack.

I have no qualms admitting that the person I am online is not the person I am.  It's a small, and to be brutally honest, rather insignificant part of me. (And yes the irony of maintaining a blog after that admission is not lost on me).

But my journal- the record of my deepest fears and desires, my most fucked up thoughts and observations- that's the me I want to live on after I'm gone. It's the me I hope I one day have the balls to share with someone else.