Integration vs. Compartmentalization

I’m often slow to adopt something.  I often don’t discover television shows until they’ve already been on the air for a season or two… and possibly only after they’ve been canceled.  I have only been texting for about a year.  I didn’t take my first drink until I was 22. 

In my first blog post, I insisted that, although I now had a blog, I would not be joining social networking sites. We all can guess how that went.  Three months later, I joined Facebook because of a video of the Muppets performing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”    You know, like you do.

One of the things I still dislike about Facebook is that it is very difficult to maintain both a professional persona and a private persona.  I am friends with some of my colleagues, but that doesn’t mean that I want them to know how I comment on another friend’s photo.  I keep two e-mail addresses for a similar reason: I like to be able to separate my work life from my home life.

Another thing that bothers me is that people post photos of me on Facebook.  I do not want the picture from the eighth grade Valentine’s Day dance to be on Facebook.  I’d be uncomfortable enough running across the picture in a shoebox in my closet.  I certainly don’t like being confronted with it when I log in and then reading what other people thing about it.  (Seriously, I know my hair was bad.  Do you think this is news?)

I’ve been feeling more and more uncomfortable with my online presence lately.  I read blogs, and make comments that include a link back to this blog.  Okay.  I’m careful to be respectful and kind, and I have complete control over when and where I comment.

But what about comment systems that ask me to comment via my Facebook account?  Then I’ve linked to my real name, and I remain unconvinced that it’s possible to set the privacy settings on Facebook so they actually work.  I just checked my account, and it seems that all the custom privacy settings I put in place when I joined are now gone. 

I read in Rolling Stone that Facebook was planning to launch a music streaming feature.  I already occasionally use Pandora, and like it a lot, but I don’t like that it tells me which of my friends enjoy specific songs.  I don’t need someone I graduated high school with to know that I prefer Ani DiFranco to Amy Grant. 

I recently joined Pinterest, and I find it a nice way to store things I find online that I want to remember.  I do not like that people who are my Facebook friends can follow my pins.  I don’t need anyone to know how I feel about a particular sweater or piece of art.

A voice in my head says, “What’s the big deal?  What do you have to hide?”  Nothing, but that’s not the point.  The point is that I want to feel in control of what I tell people about myself.  I have no desire to share the minutiae of my life with people I know but aren’t close to.

Lots of this, of course, is my own fault.  I could have joined Pinterest with an unrelated login instead of my Facebook one (and would have if I had understood the ramifications).  I could have gently ignored the Facebook requests of everyone but my closest friends and family.  I didn’t, and I accept responsibility for that.

I think what bothers me is that it’s quite difficult to opt out of these things.  I needed to understand how Pinterest worked, which I couldn’t do until I actually signed up.  I am still not sure how Pandora became linked to my account.  It feels as if the integration of my private life into everything I do online is a steamroller, and I’m trying to figure out how to stop it while it’s already in motion.

I felt that I was being a bit paranoid until I read this.  


This morning I deleted my connection to Facebook from my Pinterest account (I think), and then I deactivated my Facebook account.  

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