I personally do not blog, other than for this class, but I do sometimes write down my thoughts in my notes app; I guess that can be seen as one form of journaling. Since I journal on my laptop, only I have access to what I write, or so you would think, but there are ways that others can see what I’ve written down. Of course, I try to minimize the chances of that ever happening, but you never know. The only reason any of my writing would be made public would be under my own jurisdiction. I would have to willingly share it on close friends on social media, which I have done in the past. These writings are extremely personal, so I only share them with incredibly close friends, so I trust that they do not share it with other people. However, there is always a possibility that it could slip out accidentally or on purpose, and that would be a nightmare.

I also have Instagram and Facebook accounts as well, but I tend to use Instagram more. With social media, you can never know if the information you put out there is ever private. Even if you are a private account, your followers could always screenshot something you’ve written and share it with others. That is generally the case with all social media platforms. In my case, I believe my Instagram is a public platform. I post frequently on both my feed and my stories, and people share them. However, I do not know exactly what reason they could be sharing my information for. It could be a positive or negative thing and I would never know. That is the only negative implication of having a public platform in my opinion.

This may be a tangent, but I believe all of this comes down to your trust in your friends. Sharing your thoughts with your friends is a good idea, but you have to think about consequences, whether you want to believe in them or not. There could always be a possibility that one of your closest friends ends up sharing something you didn’t want them to share, and when that happens, trust is lost. In my opinion, social media has made trusting others a lot more difficult, which can go two ways: its harder to find people you can really REALLY trust, but that also means when you find someone you do, they stay in your life and you can rely on them.

Anyways, there are a lot of consequences to be mindful about when posting on social media, and even writing for a public or private audience, and we have to be careful.