Se7en

I’m a little uncomfortable with how much of the “new” technology is geared toward, if not entirely based on, social interaction. Obviously blogs, Myspace and Secondlife exist specifically to create some sort of interaction with other people. Flickr, Snapfish and others sharing sites are a great way to share photos with friends or, if you prefer, total strangers.

Library Thing, del.icio.us, Good Reads and the like seem to cater specifically to some sort of sharing impulse. It’s not enough for me to keep track of the books I’ve read, I need to let everyone know. Sure, I can keep bookmarks of my favorite websites in my “Favorites” tab, but what good is that if no one else can see it? Clearly there are reasons other than ego to share such information with the world at large: We in telephone reference use de.licio.us to share links and pages that can help us do our job better. In a world of shared computers, online applications go with you. So why am I so uncomfortable with such cyber-sharing?

Maybe I’m a bit leery of having too much personal information out there for anyone to find. Maybe I feel like it’s too braggey to think that my opinion matters to anyone other than my close friends. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to bother updateing so many different accounts and blogs and forums.
The world may never know…