A poll! A poll!
So a while ago I mentioned one my aunts has an LJ. I've since forgotten about that and subsequently rediscovered it. I had the same response as my initial one to the fact that she has it: complete and totally weirded-out-ness. Like, it's just weird, plain and simple. I just get this general weirded-out feeling knowing that my Aunt is on LJ, blogging like it's normal, talking about things like my uncle and cousins etc. to people who have no idea who they are in real life...except for me. Because they're my relatives who I've known my whole life. Weird, see? Anyways, I had this strange and (since then passing) desire to friend her, or at least comment on her LJ. But then I was like 'uh, am I crazy? Do I want Aunt Kate reading my journal and all my random ranting/squeeing about work/school/fandom? No way!' But then I looked at her profile and was like 'aw, but she doesn't have many friends!' And since she's a writer, I wanted to leave her links to a few good resources on LJ (like little_details).
And then I started wondering if it's just me who's weirded out by knowing about/having family online, specifically on social sites like LJ and Facebook, or if that's a general feeling everyone has. I think I've read on other people's journals that they have a family member or two friended but to me, that's just so weird. However, I will rather hypocritically say that I'm friends with 3 of my cousins on Facebook. Why that doesn't weird me out, I'm not sure. Maybe because they're on my dad's side and I'm not super close to them (as opposed to my Aunt who's married to my mother's younger brother), or because my Facebook isn't as self-disclosing as my LJ is (self-incriminating is a whole 'nother story however, which is why I've recently gotten in the habit of untagging myself in... less-than-flattering/legal situations).
So in order to conduct a correlational study (it's not a true experiment because I can't manipulate any variables; to be precise whether or not you do in fact have a relative on LJ), I've decided to conduct a poll. At 3 in the morning. Because I really don't want to study for my final tomorrow. If I missed anything/gave you stupid options for answers/you want to expand more on the topic, comment away!
Poll Relatives on LJ?
And then I started wondering if it's just me who's weirded out by knowing about/having family online, specifically on social sites like LJ and Facebook, or if that's a general feeling everyone has. I think I've read on other people's journals that they have a family member or two friended but to me, that's just so weird. However, I will rather hypocritically say that I'm friends with 3 of my cousins on Facebook. Why that doesn't weird me out, I'm not sure. Maybe because they're on my dad's side and I'm not super close to them (as opposed to my Aunt who's married to my mother's younger brother), or because my Facebook isn't as self-disclosing as my LJ is (self-incriminating is a whole 'nother story however, which is why I've recently gotten in the habit of untagging myself in... less-than-flattering/legal situations).
So in order to conduct a correlational study (it's not a true experiment because I can't manipulate any variables; to be precise whether or not you do in fact have a relative on LJ), I've decided to conduct a poll. At 3 in the morning. Because I really don't want to study for my final tomorrow. If I missed anything/gave you stupid options for answers/you want to expand more on the topic, comment away!
Poll Relatives on LJ?