Friday, August 25
Friday, August 25, 2006 | 
Posted by
Anonymous
I read this article today and wondered where something like this leaves us?
Is sharing our secrets here good or bad? Are they part of our identities or can we keep them stored away safely? Do we engage in conversations here only to preserve our tenure chances, academic safety, and reputability, or to preserve our selves too?
Is sharing your secret with a stranger - or as a stranger - different than sharing it with someone you know intimately?
Is sharing our secrets here good or bad? Are they part of our identities or can we keep them stored away safely? Do we engage in conversations here only to preserve our tenure chances, academic safety, and reputability, or to preserve our selves too?
Is sharing your secret with a stranger - or as a stranger - different than sharing it with someone you know intimately?
3 comments:
The article is interesting, more precisely, the topic of the article is interesting.. the article itself isn't great. I didn't think it summarized the issues too well, but Mahogany does. And I think that's about right: the issue doesn't seem to be with people who share some. And if anything, being here probably means that we are interested in sharing some things, but with care.. and likely not everything though. So we don't fall into the group of people who share nothing, and we're not the ones blogging under our names about everything under the sun. I think we're safe.:)
I'm enjoying being part of a.secret and that's what matters to me. If I have other issues (psych. or whatever), that's likely from my job or whatnot and not b/c I posted a pseudonymous note about it. Personally, it helps me to air some concerns, and it also helps me to see others' concerns and know that I'm not alone in mine. Plus there is fun stuff on here as well. I doubt much of that will have adverse consequences.
I agree that the article's not great, and it's just MSNBC, but it sounds like interesting research. I guess it made me think about blgging in general and how a lot of people seem to just let it all hang out in their blogs, and that they might think of it as cathartic. Then I thought about here. If we did let it all hang out, but we're pseudo-strangers, is that a different experience? I know, though, that none of us are sharing everything and we're all sharing something, so we're happily in-between. Maybe I should just call up the researcher for some collaboration. :)
In the article, it sounded like sharing too much was bad because it forces you to confront the truth about yourself and that might hurt your self-image. Is it better to pretend to yourself that you're okay?
I've only shared one secret so far, but telling someone how little work I've been doing has actually made me feel like I should do something about it. Whereas trying to pretend I'm being productive just makes me feel more guilty and want to avoid work even more.
I would have thought sharing too much would be a problem if other people's negative reactions reinforced a negative self-image, or if other people used the information against you.
I think a.secret is a good place to share some things because someone else can generally identify with the secrets and nobody knows who you are, so neither of those things are likely to occur.
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