Question: I saw a teenage girl write in her diary on a train today. In this day and age we have blogs – the modern equivalent. Do you believe these blogs on view for all are as honest as a diary under lock and key?
Yes. People have a tendency to believe their Internet audience is only as wide as they want it to be. There’s certainly a sense of anonymity on the Internet, so even the most truthful of entries will still feel as secret as they need to be because the majority of its readers a) won’t know the author and b) won’t understand who the content may be about. Sometimes, I think, people want to be heard without feeling as though they are being judged or at a risk of ruining something like a friendship. The Internet, blogs especially, allow that opportunity to feel as though others will “hear” you and give a sense of ‘release’ without having to address the issue directly with the person(s) involved.
It’s interesting, because I recently discovered a blog journal of a friend of mine, whom I recently have begun re-developing our friendship with after we started drifting apart due to our own personal priorities. In that journal was a blog post that spoke about me, only briefly, but was enough for me to gain insight on the thoughts and feelings of this person that I had no idea about at the time. They weren’t negative thoughts or feelings but it was something I kind of wished I knew at the time, so I could better support this friend at that stage of their life.
But, most of all, I think part of what keeps online journals/diaries honest is that people long for the feeling that they’re not alone – to put something out there that expresses how they feel or to discover someone else’s post and realise that person is sharing all the same thoughts and emotions that you have personally been trying to deal with also. There’s a lot of power in realising you aren’t the only person and I think that’s what helps makes publishing blog posts to the public not only such a successful thing but something so voluntary of the author.
