Digital Self

 The last people that I want to read my thoughts are those who know me, especially those who are close to me. The diaries and journals I have kept have always been a place for my deepest feelings to come to light. I would write and write and let every idea flow as fast as my pen could carry it. These feelings were not always proud moments for me. I remember a few times I wrote something down and was so immediately shocked by it that I paused writing – sometimes you do not realize how you feel until you try to put it into words. And those words can be ugly. Those words can hurt. The words of a diary lead us to a deeper part of ourselves and those same words betray us the moment someone else reads them. I remember coming back to my bedroom with some drinks and my boyfriend was sitting on my bed texting someone. He seemed a bit more tense, but I was not able to place why. This sort of thing happened a couple of times. We were in a rocky patch and I assumed that was all it was. Two t...

   I have been receiving journals and diaries as presents since I was young. Of course, I wrote about the latest hot topics, who I had a crush on and my hurt or anger towards many life events. The thought of burning my journals or diaries is so therapeutic for me. I understand the turmoil others would go through if someone read their personal pages of loneliness or grief. For myself, I have burned many pages as a child because I enjoyed the sudden rush of relief. Those pages were holding me back and there truly is not a reason to hold on to so much pain or innocence middle school slang.   When I read over my old journals I get a since of empowerment because I am no longer stuck in the bout of depression. I also enjoy just combing over what a typical day was for me back then and comparing it to how my lifestyle is today. I have nothing to hide so I would not mind anyone finding my journals and reading them. Yes, it would be invasion of privacy, but I refuse to give anyon...

   This weeks prompt is a good one. To burn the journal or not to, that is the question. In my eyes once you pass on and all the stress and anxiety from a person judging you is gone, you can be free. You no longer have to stick around trying to maintain a level of respect or compromise who you are to please others. Once your dead and gone you are freed from that aspect of life. Who cares what people think of you once your gone? Have at it for all I care. What I do want to be left behind is who I am through the eyes of the one who lived it. I want people to get the words from the horses mouth. When its my time to leave this earth, I want all my journals and diaries to be available to family and friends.    It took some brain storming to get to this concussion. People have some valid reasoning to keep their privacy or to let the people get a piece of them. As a person who is naturally curious about others and their lived experience, I think its only right to let people...

     While I do think burning a private journal is a good choice for some people, I personally would not choose to burn my diaries. I would rather go through and edit/censor myself instead of losing everything in the blaze. If I were unable to do this myself I would have to trust a friend or family member to do so for me. I would choose to trust a close friend first as they would have a bit more objectivity and less emotional connection to my thoughts than, for example, my sister. I would trust them to take out whatever didn't need to be shared with the world, rather than throwing away all of my private musings. It would feel like burning memories, not only the bad but also the good. Diaries are used to chronicle daily life with its ups and its downs, from major events to small occurrences. I would want my family and friends to be able to read about my happiest moments in those small and large ways and understand the ways they positively impacted me; I know I wish I could...

 Although I personally have never kept a personal journal or diary, I think that burning a person journal would be an amazing feeling. As a writer, I think that one of the main purposes of keeping a personal journal is to write down all of your feelings, ideas, etc. that you don't want to tell to others, but that you need to just get off your chest. Some reasons that writers turn to writing in their journal rather than just having a conversation with others is because they don't want sympathy, they don't want to be judged, and they also don't want to carry around the burden of keeping their own feelings and/or emotions a secret. With that said, I would also think that the majority of the writers that keep a personal journal would definitely not want their parents, friends, significant other, etc. reading the things that they have a written in a place that only holds so many deep emotions and possible secrets, in fear that these people will judge them or treat them diffe...

  Read the following articles:  Burning Your Diaries Some day Someone... Why You Should Never... Decide if, one day, you will decide to destroy your journals/diaries. Do you want family members or friends to read your private thoughts? If you don't destroy them, who will?  Do you want to leave the decision in someone's hands?  Even if you have never kept a journal, think about what you would do if you did. You can also consider yourself as a reader. Would you read diary entries that your parents, girlfriend, sibling, partner or friend wrote? Mull over some of the ideas in the articles listed above and post your comments on the community blog. Explore the concepts of private, time and space, and/or purpose of a journal. Feel free to use your any of your own experiences and/or examples, references, etc... Make sure to label your post Week 2: Add a title 

         T ypically, I’m a private person but I see writing about myself online as something fresh. I used to write in a dream journal for sometime and discovered exciting results. My dreams became deeper and lucid. They were livelier, I could remember them in greater detail. Every morning, I’d awake with two pages worth of content. Journaling is an incredible tool, journaling online is different however. I’m not sure I will reveal my personal dreams to others, but if someone else wants to share their dreams — who am I to stop them?  If I became influenced by my readers, I feel my voice would change. That’s where my trepidation lies with online journaling. Pouring out my personal details to strangers could help me be understood better, I guess, but then my life wouldn’t be private. There are people who devote many hours of their day peering into the lives of others, especially with social media, which are forms of mini-blogs/journals in themselves. There ...

The FBI are spying on us, watch Citizenfour if you don't believe me. Whether or not it's true, it brings influence to my motto when it comes to my image online: it's already there. If someone wants to know what I look like, they can easily find out within a half-hour at most if they know where to look. Now, does this mean I am / should be honest about EVERY ASPECT of my life? Absolutely not. I'm not giving out my extremely personal information. But my birthday, what I look like, the city I live in? Although I've been more private about some of these now, if you really want to know badly you can find it if you look hard enough. So with that in mind, why WOULDN'T I feel comfortable writing about how I'm feeling? Might as well, given that the FBI are spying on us anyway. Why would I do it? Well beyond this class I don't keep a public online journal. But  I do participate in several private online chats (wouldn't call them 100% private but they're a...

1.        Writing about myself online gives me a sense of freedom. I can write what I want to, I can share my opinions and ideas without feeling like someone will judge me. Although my writing can still absolutely be judged by readers, they do not know who I am personally, so I feel better about it. Yes, I could share whatever I want with my real identity showing, but it is a lot more fun to do it this way where no one really knows who I am. I believe we should share our personal dreams and thoughts, even goals, on the online platform. I think sharing this kind of stuff is interesting for other people, it gives the reader more of a personal feel. I do think that there is a time and a place for sharing these things, though. I don’t think everyone should be posting every single personal detail about themselves and their lives to their Facebook pages all day every day. But, I do think certain spaces, like a blog, are meant for that sort of thing. People seek b...

   I travel the world currently as an International Flight Attendant with my own personal travel blog, that I began a year ago. Presenting myself, my feelings and experiences can become a bit challenging when I am in search for the right words to describe how I see a place. I do not believe when it comes to many online diaries or blogs writers are oversharing. I enjoy hearing personal stories no matter the context and so does plenty of others.  There is always so one who can relate to pain, joy and the stress of everyday life. Your words may give them comfort or that daily laugh they are in search for, and this is why people enjoy reading other journals. The idea that consuming the personal information of others is not a modern issue because it has gotten worse over time, didn’t start today and surely won’t end today.  I do not believe that dairy writers write in a stream of consciousness mode because a dairy is full of your thoughts and feelings. The reader make...

  1.      I am a very open person so writing about myself online does not bother me in the slightest. The choice to leave our blogs anonymous only allows me to be more comfortable because I do not need to worry about someone I know finding my blog. These diary entries being uploaded to these blogs are important works. Sharing our personal thoughts and dreams online is important as there is most likely another person out there feeling the same way or aiming for the same goal in life and they’ll benefit from hearing another’s experience. I don’t believe oversharing could make you lose your voice and purpose, but I do think it could make you lose your audience. Oversharing or getting too real with people sometimes makes them uncomfortable; They are not used to such vulnerability and raw emotion being offered freely. There are definitely times in which a writer needs to consider if they are sharing too much about themselves and if that sharing could benefit or int...

 1. I feel fine with posting about myself online. I do hold back a bit for the sake of employers seeing what I say or family who may take my words out of context. I try not to speak too much on politics or topics of religion that have many varying opinions on them. Most of what I say online is lighthearted, coming from a comedic aspect. I do take a few deep dives into my personal life so people can get an understand on what I’ve been through and what shaped me to be the person I am today. I give just enough away to invite a person who may want to know more about me in. I do believe you can over share, losing a sense of voice or purpose. I think repetitiveness on certain subjects without taking action can make people silence you out. there’s a bit  of show and prove in person that has to be done that gives your voice purpose and meaning to others. A good blend of talking and in person action is needed. Like if you advocate for woman’s rights or equal rights across race barriers...

  Putting Yourself Out There Writing about yourself in deeply personal ways can be challenging win its own right. Moving that personal writing to the internet where the world can see it is a scary undertaking that makes you ask yourself a lot of questions. Who will read it? Will they care? What is the point I am trying to make? Does it matter? Personally, I enjoy writing about myself. It feels as though I am enjoying a rare opportunity to have a conversation with myself and get to know myself. I kept diaries and journals before and after I ventured onto the internet and began keeping a blog. It was exciting to put my thoughts online knowing that anyone could read them. Some of my friends had them too, so we would comment on each other’s posts. In the end, though, I have struggled to be fully comfortable posting about myself or my thoughts on the internet. The reasons for this have changed over the years ranging from not getting enough viewers, not having the time, feeling that ...

  1. With an anonymous username, writing about myself online feels very freeing and stress relieving. I think that having an open and nonjudgemental space to just say anything and everything that you want feels very safe to me. I think that sharing our personal dreams, thoughts, etc. is a really good thing not only for our own mental health, but also so that others are able to relate, not feel alone, and maybe even gain another personal perspective that they might not have thought of before. Lastly, I think that there definitely is a point to where someone could overshare and lose their sense of voice. In my opinion, sharing general things about your self is great but some things can be too personal to share with others, and those are things that can make you who you are so if everyone knows them it could make you feel less interesting and/or original. 2. I think people are interested in reading other peoples' journals for two reasons. The first reason could be that they just want ...

  1. With an anonymous username, writing about myself online feels very freeing and stress relieving. I think that having an open and nonjudgemental space to just say anything and everything that you want feels very safe to me. I think that sharing our personal dreams, thoughts, etc. is a really good thing not only for our own mental health, but also so that others are able to relate, not feel alone, and maybe even gain another personal perspective that they might not have thought of before. Lastly, I think that there definitely is a point to where someone could overshare and lose their sense of voice. In my opinion, sharing general things about your self is great but some things can be too personal to share with others, and those are things that can make you who you are so if everyone knows them it could make you feel less interesting and/or original. 2. I think people are interested in reading other peoples' journals for two reasons. The first reason could be that they just want ...

    For centuries, people have turned to private journals to document their days, sort out creative problems, help them through crises, comfort them in solitude or pain, or preserve their stories for the future.  For example, Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) used her her diary to escape stifling work as a schoolteacher; Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) poured out his his loneliness and self-doubt; John Steinbeck (1902–1968) explored his struggles with  The Grapes of Wrath , and Bob Dylan (b. 1941) detailed his concert tour experiences. Using a variety of reasons, journal keepers strive to document their lives, feelings, problems, moods, and relationships in order to reflect on connections between actions, perspectives, and implications.  Traditional self-narrative conventions dictate that writers write a journal to reflect on the world and their place in it, but people think about this in different ways.   PROMPT DIRECTIONS: In the presentation and ppt this ...