Just do (tweet/facebook) it
I’ve been conducting a little experiment with Facebook and Twitter lately. Despite the fact that I’m friends with/followed by colleagues, business contacts, family and (on Twitter) god knows who else, I’ve more-or-less stopped censoring my content. I’m at times inappropriate, irreverent, goofy and even suggestive. Basically my real-world self, condensed into 140-character soundbites.
down with self censorship!
I don’t believe in privacy when it comes to social media. I think we’d all be better off if we recognized so-called privacy settings for what they are: an illusion. And once we’ve made peace with this, we essentially have two options: we can water-down our ideas and comments, creating a universally inoffensive but ultimately uninteresting online persona; or we can embrace the idea of leaving a more colorful – and far more honest – digital footprint.
Because our personal and professional lives have collided on these platforms, the first route may seem like the only real option – after all, it’s probably inadvisable to share on Facebook that the dog walker caught me walking around the house in my underwear (true story, eek) when I’m “friends” with reporters and analysts. But I disagree. My working thesis is that the people who wouldn’t otherwise have these more personal insights into my life/thoughts either: a) won’t care, or b) will feel connected to me on a more human level. Maybe the underwear example is a little distracting, but in general, I think that quirky, amusing or impassioned updates are what turn otherwise stale connections into opportunities for interaction.
I’m not very far along in my experiment, but so far the results have been promising. In general, the wackier the content I put out there, the more unpredictable the response and respondent. Which makes me happy. It would be a shame if technology empowered us to connect on an unprecedented scale, only to have us clam up. My hope is that rather than fretting about our digital track records, we’ll become increasingly accepting of our collective weirdness. Obviously, the golden rule of social media (“don’t be an idiot”) should be obeyed, but beyond that, let’s have some fun, shall we?
