Monday, June 01, 2009
Digital Life Management
For my 1000th blog post, I need to ask you readers a question: do I share too much?
I hope your answer is "no" because I don't feel that way at all, but I just recently ran into some Japanese Internet issues that forced me to think about what it is that I do, digitally speaking.
For starters, I picked this domain name in 2004 because it is a pun featuring my own last name. I subsequently went on to use feitclub as my username on a number of online forums and other websites (most of which are gathered on my contact page). It's a pretty thin veil of anonymity because I didn't really consider using my own name online to be a problem. Yet I can remember a lot of people being extremely nervous when they heard I was starting a blog and writing about myself on the Internet using my own name. They felt something about that was inherently dangerous and I couldn't understand why.
Flash forward to today and I live in a country where that attitude is widespread: Japan is afraid of the Internet. I had heard that before from What Japan Thinks but this article (and this recent non-controversy) really sum up the matter quite well. I had always assumed Japanese web pages sucked because they were designed with mobile phones in mind, but he argues that the real reason is a general distrust of the Internet as a medium. Fear of new technology isn't unheard of but sometimes I feel like Japan is almost trying to wait it out, as if the Internet is just going to go away someday.
This fear hit home not too long ago when Mako casually commanded me to never post a picture of our baby on the Internet. She said she had no objections to sending pictures to friends or family, but putting up a picture for everyone to see is apparently out of the question. When I asked why, all she could say was "It's my baby." I didn't argue because she is very pregnant right now and completely unstable, so she says a lot of things that don't make sense or at least contradict her own long-held opinions. At one point last month she said she never wanted to go to America again, but this weekend she couldn't stop talking about visiting Boston after seeing a TV special about the city (and its cuisine).
Even if she reverses herself or doesn't even remember making such a declaration, I am wondering if she is actually right. Between this blog, Twitter, and Facebook, I am producing a steady of stream of words and images featuring and starring me. My life is hardly an open book (there's plenty of stuff that cannot/should not be made public) but I offer the Internet a substantial look at my life. That's something I have chosen to do and I enjoy it. If nothing else, it's a fun exercise to keep myself writing and it serves as a record of what I'm up to should I ever need to recall what Mako and I ate on our first date. Mako is basically along for the ride, posing for silly pictures knowing full well they will end up on the Internet. However, it will be years before our son is old enough to grasp what the hell an Internet is. Is it right to simply decide that he is on board with all this?
Allow me to answer my own question, because I just realized I'm looking at this the wrong way: Yes, it is OK for me to make these decisions for my son because I am his father. It's going to be my job to decide a lot of things concerning my son for decades. These decisions will run the gamut from trivial (i.e. choosing when we take family vacations) to fundamental (disciplining him if he steals something), and that will include encouraging him to embrace certain cultural phenomena that I enjoy. There's nothing sinister or Orwellian about it; in fact, the reason I know the word "Orwellian" is because my father gave me Animal Farm to read when I was in second grade.
Indeed, there were a lot of interests my father tried to pass on to me when I was growing up. My father loved baseball when I was a kid, and so did I. I would hope my son will learn to love it too (He doesn't have to love the Yankees, of course, just so long as he doesn't choose the Red Sox). My father was fascinated by history, especially military history. He took us to Civil War battlefields as a family and played strategic war games with his friends. He loved skiing and sailing. I didn't embrace all of these things, but I know that being exposed to all of them had an affect on me. I'm sure all the traveling we did encouraged me to visit Japan when I did.
As for me, I am not scared of the Internet and I hope my son grows up accepting it as a part of his life. He doesn't need to write his own blog or anything, but I don't want him to feel like the Internet represents some kind of threat to his privacy. Of course, I am not a dictator. These kinds of decisions will be made by the two of us and if Mako holds her ground, you may not be seeing any pictures of our son on the Internet at all. She has just as much right to shape our child as I do, and in the big picture this isn't something worth fighting over. It's not like she'll be raising him as a Luddite. Whatever happens, I hope my son will at least come to view the Internet as something that can be both fun and useful. After all, no matter where he decides to live in the future, he will need to use it to keep in touch with half of his family. I don't want that to become a chore that he loathes.
I hope your answer is "no" because I don't feel that way at all, but I just recently ran into some Japanese Internet issues that forced me to think about what it is that I do, digitally speaking.
For starters, I picked this domain name in 2004 because it is a pun featuring my own last name. I subsequently went on to use feitclub as my username on a number of online forums and other websites (most of which are gathered on my contact page). It's a pretty thin veil of anonymity because I didn't really consider using my own name online to be a problem. Yet I can remember a lot of people being extremely nervous when they heard I was starting a blog and writing about myself on the Internet using my own name. They felt something about that was inherently dangerous and I couldn't understand why.
Flash forward to today and I live in a country where that attitude is widespread: Japan is afraid of the Internet. I had heard that before from What Japan Thinks but this article (and this recent non-controversy) really sum up the matter quite well. I had always assumed Japanese web pages sucked because they were designed with mobile phones in mind, but he argues that the real reason is a general distrust of the Internet as a medium. Fear of new technology isn't unheard of but sometimes I feel like Japan is almost trying to wait it out, as if the Internet is just going to go away someday.
This fear hit home not too long ago when Mako casually commanded me to never post a picture of our baby on the Internet. She said she had no objections to sending pictures to friends or family, but putting up a picture for everyone to see is apparently out of the question. When I asked why, all she could say was "It's my baby." I didn't argue because she is very pregnant right now and completely unstable, so she says a lot of things that don't make sense or at least contradict her own long-held opinions. At one point last month she said she never wanted to go to America again, but this weekend she couldn't stop talking about visiting Boston after seeing a TV special about the city (and its cuisine).
Even if she reverses herself or doesn't even remember making such a declaration, I am wondering if she is actually right. Between this blog, Twitter, and Facebook, I am producing a steady of stream of words and images featuring and starring me. My life is hardly an open book (there's plenty of stuff that cannot/should not be made public) but I offer the Internet a substantial look at my life. That's something I have chosen to do and I enjoy it. If nothing else, it's a fun exercise to keep myself writing and it serves as a record of what I'm up to should I ever need to recall what Mako and I ate on our first date. Mako is basically along for the ride, posing for silly pictures knowing full well they will end up on the Internet. However, it will be years before our son is old enough to grasp what the hell an Internet is. Is it right to simply decide that he is on board with all this?
Allow me to answer my own question, because I just realized I'm looking at this the wrong way: Yes, it is OK for me to make these decisions for my son because I am his father. It's going to be my job to decide a lot of things concerning my son for decades. These decisions will run the gamut from trivial (i.e. choosing when we take family vacations) to fundamental (disciplining him if he steals something), and that will include encouraging him to embrace certain cultural phenomena that I enjoy. There's nothing sinister or Orwellian about it; in fact, the reason I know the word "Orwellian" is because my father gave me Animal Farm to read when I was in second grade.
Indeed, there were a lot of interests my father tried to pass on to me when I was growing up. My father loved baseball when I was a kid, and so did I. I would hope my son will learn to love it too (He doesn't have to love the Yankees, of course, just so long as he doesn't choose the Red Sox). My father was fascinated by history, especially military history. He took us to Civil War battlefields as a family and played strategic war games with his friends. He loved skiing and sailing. I didn't embrace all of these things, but I know that being exposed to all of them had an affect on me. I'm sure all the traveling we did encouraged me to visit Japan when I did.
As for me, I am not scared of the Internet and I hope my son grows up accepting it as a part of his life. He doesn't need to write his own blog or anything, but I don't want him to feel like the Internet represents some kind of threat to his privacy. Of course, I am not a dictator. These kinds of decisions will be made by the two of us and if Mako holds her ground, you may not be seeing any pictures of our son on the Internet at all. She has just as much right to shape our child as I do, and in the big picture this isn't something worth fighting over. It's not like she'll be raising him as a Luddite. Whatever happens, I hope my son will at least come to view the Internet as something that can be both fun and useful. After all, no matter where he decides to live in the future, he will need to use it to keep in touch with half of his family. I don't want that to become a chore that he loathes.
Labels: family, Internet issues, Japan, marriage, pregnancy, site news
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Generally speaking I don't think you share too much, although you have in the past. You don't seem to cross what I would consider boundaries anymore. But I am a fairly private person who would never dream of sharing even a slice of what you share on here...just not in my nature. I would never post a pic of my kid on the internet, for example. The internet is useful and fun...and also waaaaaay trashy and scary.
Hmm... As an outsider, I'd tend to agree that a baby's identity should be protected.
# posted by 
: 03 June, 2009 11:26
: 03 June, 2009 11:26
I dont think sharing info about yourself online is a problem, as long as it doesnt hinder your safety/security in anyway. Like revealing answers to your security questions on facebook, gmail etc. these games like "your startwars name" etc, ehich consist of things like your pets name combined with your mothers maiden name. Online things like that are gold dust for fruadsters. i rarely post a picture of me online, apart form bebo *Dont really knwo why.. it feels "safe" although I think thats just a false sense of security because people I know and am close to, comment and look at them.
Sorry if I went off on a tanget there.. I dont think you share too much info with your readers.
Sorry if I went off on a tanget there.. I dont think you share too much info with your readers.
Well, I'm glad we all agree that I'm not crossing any lines these days. I still don't understand the reasoning that sharing a picture of our baby is some kind of a risk though.
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