I’m often asked about privacy concerns when it comes to blogging. Many people describe privacy concerns as a generational thing and generalize broadly to say that younger people are happy putting up pictures of themselves and those in their lives on Facebook, or posting their thoughts about sex, relationships, and jobs in their personal blogs; older people aren’t.
It really isn’t that simple, however, sometimes you may find out what your own comfort limits are only by crossing them. For me, the guideline is this: I will put online—in any online space, regardless of password protection or site membership requirements—information I would feel comfortable sharing with a friendly stranger I speak to on the street.
Would I be willing to show someone like that the photos I had taken for publicity purposes? Of course, and I’m also happy for that person to get a glimpse into my interest in travels, and life via the photos I share on Flickr. Am I OK with sharing my professional background and experience online? Yep, and I do that on LinkedIn. How about Facebook. That social networking site has spaces for me to tell people about my interests, relationship status, and lots of pictures too and yes, I’m happy for pretty much anyone to have access to that stuff.
By most standards I’m pretty open. What I don’t share online—anywhere online—are the private details of my life. The things I might share with one or two close friends in conversation, or that I might perhaps only tell my wife. (That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Well, lots of people share everything.)
So I’m curious, where do you draw the line? And why do you draw it where you do?
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