As quoted from "One Step" in the movie Aladdin: Scandal!
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Mwa ha ha ha ha! It if funny because it is true.
As a generation we are an oxymoron. We shut ourselves away opting to use computers and cell phones to communicate and in doing so put our most private selves out into the world with out even blinking an eye.
How often have you been the unwilling participant of a near by cell phone conversation? I sat next to a man who was having a serious life altering conversation with his wife or daughter that continued until the Fasten Safety Belt icon on the airplane turned on forcing him to turn of his cell phone and to privately reflect on his marital woes. Like every cell phone user in America he was perfectly willing to have this conversation amongst a cluster of people because he didnt know us. As far as he was concerned he was in a private four walled room and I served as insulation.
But our private public lives arent limited to the girl on the pink phone next to me on the bus loudly discussing her STD results. It is also on the internet, we blog, live journal, and myspace our lives electronically recording ourselves for the benefit of anyone who takes the trouble to look us up or stumble upon us.
Sure your e-journal of choice may be set to Friends only or only available to someone who has an account but who is to say what happens with that information. Is it printed out and posted on your office bulletin board, saved for later black mail use, or is it skimmed by a friend who cant stand to read another three page entry about the everyday events of your life.
50 years ago little sally went to the ice cream social to make friends and exchange pleasantries. Now SalLie8745 sits at home on a Friday night watching Grays Anatomy on DVD while filling her blog with petty resentments, rants, and the personal secrets of her life for the world to see while she in turn hides from it.
I am not saying I want a dandy in a straw hat and a cane to come knocking on my door for a promenade at the park but I also dont want to spend my time talking to Johnny5an who likes Harry Potter Fanfiction and claming to be something he is not.
Yes friends, times they are a changing and they will continue to do so. But in the meantime if you have to answer your phone LEAVE the movie theatre, if you have to discuss your boyfriends sexual problems at the train station TRY to whisper, and think twice about posting your arguments about your friends and family on the internet.what would you really do if they found them and read them today, tomorrow, or 5 years from now.