Why wear your heart on your sleeve, when you can wear it on your blog

I recently read this article on USA Today's website.  This article was talking about social networks and how they have shaped the way that people communicate with one another.  This one focused specifically on the boom in internet blogging.  It talked about how blogs had in a way replaced the paper and pen diaries that many people kept, these online blogs have turned into a way for teens to write about their day, their thoughts and communicate with their friends.  This article was mentioned at the end of chapter 7 in Brooks-Young's book, which was on creating content, more specifically writing online.  I found this article kind of interesting despite the fact that it is about 6 years old.  This allowed me to think about how our use of the internet has changed in the last 6 years and it made me question if these things have become more prominent in our society.

This article also made me think about blogging from two different perspectives, that of a teacher and that of a teenager who was using sites mentioned in the article when it was written.  From a person who used sites such as myspace, looking back I can see how it becomes easy to put your whole life on display for the whole world because it feels as if only your close friends will be the ones who care enough to look at the information that you are posting online.  It becomes easy to rant about the things bothering you or post the exciting things that are happening in your life because you want to tell everyone about it instantly.  You want to share things with your friends who are near and far because they are your friends and that's what you do.  It is easy to get caught up in the desire for everyone in your life to know the important details that you forget, that people not in your life have access to things you put online as well. But from a teacher's perspective you want to keep your students safe, you don't want to expose them to anything that could cause them harm.  It is our job to teach our students how to responsibly use the internet but that doesn't always ensure that they will use the internet properly.  It is easy to get caught up in the moment and put something up online that you shouldn't.  I think from a teacher's perspective that is where google docs and other things like that come in useful because it allows students to put stuff online but the teacher can better monitor what they students are doing and posting online.  They have freedom but it's controlled freedom, kind of the best of both worlds.