Answers

It’s easy to write a post that asks questions, and the questions are valuable things for you to consider. Talk to your significant others, be they family or friend. Ponder it and see what thoughts turn up.

Without letting me deter you from any of the brilliant things your thoughts and conversations will produce, please allow me to suggest some solutions …or improvements, at least.

Publish Thoughtfully

In our younger years, we may publish some pretty silly things. Livejournal is a delightfully tragic repository of such things. As we become more wise, we develop a better filter. Use this filter to prevent things from ending up where they don’t belong. If you don’t want that photo on a stranger’s hard drive, don’t put it on the Internet. Yes, the bikini looks terrific. Carry a photo around so you can show it off to your friends, instead. And I’m sure your carefully considered rant about your neighbor is delicious gossip, save it for your next café chat or euchre game. The Internet does not need to know.

Remember How To Forget

Not everything needs to last forever. Like those drawings I made my parents in grade school. Thank goodness they found their way to some landfill back in Indiana. Remember when you only took maybe 4 photos in the average month? So many things forgotten … and most of it is just as well forgotten. Well, feel free to take 400 photos next month, but consider deleting the 396 that you really will not want to look at in another decade. It will make those 4 that much more special, and that much easier to find. And if you share them, do so thoughtfully.

Help Your Friends

Not everyone is a Social Media Guru by birth. Some people are good at real life, instead. This virtual landscape can be a bit intimidating. If you know someone having trouble keeping their business to themselves, help them out. Show them how their information could be used in a less-than-ideal way. Show them how they are compromising their security. Once they are properly motivated toward being smart about it, help them learn how.

Conclusion

We want to be blissful optimists, thinking the best of people and expecting the best of life. Life requires a balance between this delightful optimism and the necessary realism. With that in mind, we will do well to consider the audience before we allow ANYTHING private out into the wilds of the Internet. Just as we consider a friend’s ability to keep a secret before sharing gossip or news, we must consider the Internet’s tendency to exaggerate, remove from context, and preserve.

Whether it’s your cake-smeared child’s first birthday photo or your bank account, the imprudent handling of information can come back to haunt us.