Month: December 2008

I’ve been in a holiday mood today and have spoken to three of my favorite relatives. One I talked to on Skype after sharing thoughts on Facebook about the crock pot chili recipe I was trying today. She’s using Facebook for her business, and to communicate with her kids “and me, her cousin”. The other two relatives, both of whom I’m sure would love to be on Facebook communicating with the rest of the family, told me they were interested but had held back because of the fear of exposing too much information. I can only assume this attitude is largely driven by the current, pervasive anti-social media tone that shows up at times. “What if I say something about myself that a future employer might take exception to?” Well, yes, but the two people who expressed this concern to me have a combined age of around 130. One is never going to apply for a job again, and neither is likely to be doing anything anyway that would deter a prospective employer.

Yeah, I get it, and I don’t mean to be dismissive of their concerns. I’m also aware that I’ve always been a very open person, for whatever reason, and not too concerned about expressing myself. I realize not everyone is that way. But I can’t help but feel that a certain amount of reticence in the general populous toward social media comes from a very small number of salacious stories about people being embarrassed online that get wide coverage.