I keep starting entries and then not actually doing them

[silverflight8]

I'll get about two sentences (that is - if I'm actually sitting at my computer, and not either gallivanting outside probably playing ingress, or lying in bed reading something stupid on my phone again). But one of the thoughts that keeps intruding is my increasing uneasiness at posting so much online - even privately. I actually use lj/dw - lj especially - as a combo public journal and private one. I still post a fair percentage as public/flocked, but a lot of journalling became online. Trying to write as much as I usually do gives my hand cramps because I feel that archivist urge so much. It's fun to look back at what I was thinking and seeing!

But I worry about what I'm putting online. I'm pseudonymous, of course, and if it were to all become public it's only minorly embarrassing, and it's minorly embarrassing only because I like privacy. It's mostly just information that's not really relevant to anyone, I went here, I went there, oh digression digression digression, it's not a burn book or much detail. There are linkages to my wallet name, of course. But even that doesn't worry me that much. Instead, I'm increasingly unhappy with the way that companies harvest my data online and use it to sell things to me. Yes - sell things to me. It's not particularly sinister, yet, but I resent that data science (which I am myself interested in....) is being used to make these predictions. And if my activity on various sites like instagram and youtube and google are useful, how much more fruitful is my own writing in my voice about what I see and like and want and go out and do? Ten years ago natural language processing wasn't really something to be used commercially. Now it is.

But the way social media works, with services free and providers looking for a way to monetize - I don't think there's a way to avoid this problem. And I like social media. I produce content on pretty much all the platforms I'm on; I'll comment, write, contribute photos, etc, because I like engaging. But looking through the archives that Google can pull about the stuff they've compiled about me is unsettling.

Comments

[ambyr]

I hear you. I post basically nothing public these days, and am a little bewildered at how public people are willing to be. (My dad got in a Twitter slap fight with the Polish ambassador to Switzerland today, and I'm left sitting here going--how? why?)

[silverflight8]

It makes me sad because I don't actually mind posting publicly - lots of book reviews I totally want to talk to (practically) anybody about. But I am interested in actual real people responding to what I write, not corporations and businesses using the content I create to sell things to me and readers. I I resent that even private stuff might be analyzed, too, so that even flocking etc won't help.

...twitter making public figures more accessible?? I guess?

[lanalucy]

Indeed.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

It makes me sad :(

[sherrilina.livejournal.com]

Yeah the data stuff can be unsettling. I sometimes open up tabs in incognito/private windows to avoid having the activity tracked. *sigh*

On the other hand, my journal was pretty much the closest thing I ever got to keeping up with a journal...and now Facebook too. It is fun seeing memories and going back in time.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

heee I've missed you and the chicken icon! How have you been? (Maybe we should take this to flock haha, considering). Hope you have been doing well <3

I do really like having a journal - I dump thoughts into it, I like going back and seeing. I wonder about maybe splitting things; still having publicish stuff for sharing and just lock down everything else, to offline...but I don't know. They'll still harvest my public stuff. Is it so hard to just have my stuff seen by humans to enjoy??