Fellow bloggers: T2 wants your opinions

The very funny Carol Midgley, who writes for the Times's T2 section, is researching the psychological fallout of writing a no-holds-barred blog and then regretting it. We were talking and she asked me what I thought about "the decline of the private self in the blogging era and whether you think you have to reveal more and more to keep it interesting".

So fellow bloggers, if you have an opinion, write to Carol at carol.midgley@thetimes.co.uk. Note: your comments may be used in a print story in the Times.

Comments

[Franziska]

I started blogging a few years ago and talk pretty much about everything. A friend of mine who reads my blog said, reading your blog is like listening to you in the pub talking about a subject you feel passionate about. I avoid naming names but I blog under my real name and there is nothing I blog about that I wouldn't say in person. I too find it therapeutic and it has saved my friends from having to listen to me ranting on about something they find boring but I find interesting. After all, it's a lot easier leaving a website than telling a person to shut up.
I'm not worried about a future employer digging up my blog. If I can't have an opinion in my private life, then this employer isn't the right one for me and I rather not work for this person.

[Glen Thomas]

No-holds-barred anonymous posting, on blogs or a forum, is a weak and cowardly act, unless you are a genuine whistle-blower.

Why should you not have to stand by your public comments? If you are only being protected from libel actions by your anonymity, perhaps you should take more care to be more accurate and less malicious.

Who will take an anonymous poster seriously anyway?

[Nicky]

Thanks; I have upped the privacy settings a bit more, and also blocked the offending ex! Think I'll just leave Friends Reunited if I can work out how to...

[bushra]

so we know AM is a blog, and commenters will have blogs, is there any reason why can we submit a URL when we comment, but users cannot get access to these links via the comments? i for one would love to check out everyone else's blogs...

[Jo]

Nicky - If you don't want people to find you on Facebook you can up your privacy settings. Two people recently contacted me through my brother because they couldn't find me. My friend on the other hand uses an alias so no one can find her but she can still communicate with us.

[Nicky]

My son informed me the other day that if you Google me you get the picture of me that's on Facebook. I don't really like that!

I also recently changed my details on Friends Reunited (which I'd almost forgotten I was on) when I got a message both on there and on Facebook from an ex with whom I did not wish to be in contact!

And I didn't have that much info on there, and only my friends can read my profile etc etc.

Unfortunately, Facebook's quite a good way to keep up with old schoolfriends and people whom I don't see that often. Otherwise, I'd close my account.

I don't blog, though I do read a few others' blogs. Mostly, I don't find blogs that interesting, so I'm quite selective. I am on a few forums though, which I quite enjoy, and indeed have met and become friends with some people from those forums.

Oh, and Nicky's my real name. It's not like it's Esmerelda or anything though, is it; there are a fair few of us around...

[katyboo1]

I blog and I love it. I blog every day. I ask permission from any friend I talk about and I don't ask permission from my children who I talk about all the time.

If people don't find it interesting then that's their problem. They don't have to read it.

As for the kids, who knows how they're going to feel about it when they're older? I can't worry about that along with everything else. When they are older if they ask me not to write stuff about them, I won't.

I write about whatever I want to write about as long as it pertains to me. I certainly won't be writing about my friend's smear tests (unless they ask me to). I do write about mine if I feel like it.

I find it hugely therapeutic and only wish I'd have discovered it before.

Plus, I've made some very cool blogging friends.

[Supermother]

I don't have a blog. Some people breach the rights of others in their blogs but I do find some blogs interesting to read.

[Whimsey]

PS - I ought to add that sometimes I don't even bother to read what others have said on the subject, I just say all the interesting things that I have to say on it....!!!!

[Whimsey]

I'm always amazed by blogging. I just don't get it. Why should anyone be interested in one person going on and on about themselves/their issue? It's so narcisistic in the end. If you want to debate something, fine, but to have that 'me me me' aspect to blogging seems nothing but a vanity ego trip.

I don't regard AM as a blog, anyway - I regard it as a debating site. The journos put down a particular 'pro' or 'con' and the rest of us get merrily stuck in to debating it. Sometimes I don't even bother to read the original post, just what is being said on the subject.

Sadly, I know that the reason for my anti-blogging attitude is very disengenuous. Why on earth do OTHER PEOPLE think they are interesting when (obviously) only I am interesting (well, I've fascinated myself all my life, and I'm a pretty demanding audience, let me tell you!!!!!)

:)

[Laura]

I started having a blog some years ago and started off on a small scale. I have a relatively unusual life and an even more unusual job (anyone out there talking about sperm and sperm donation for a living??) so it was hardly anonymous. Realising this, I never shared anything about my family life, thoughts and hopes that I didn't want others to know.

However I just didn't realise how widespread it had become as it wasn't one of these high-flying widely publicised ones. I knew it was time to stop when an Australian professor asked me at a conference in Lyon about my daughter's teeth after I posted about her falling and breaking them. Whilst it's hardly an earth-shattering fact it just didn't feel right.

I missed it though, also because blogging has given me some great opportunities which otherwise I wouldn't have had.

[Gipsy]

I Facebook, but for friends and family only. I do have a blog, but it is related to a specific issue, and that issue is the basis for all my material in the blog. I wouldn't blog if I didn't have to, frankly I find it rather stressful having to come up with material all the time. That might be because everything I write about has to relate to a specific topic though. I wonder if other bloggers find it stressful?

[LM]

Speak softly and carry a big stick? Er, sorry, that's advice for an incoming President.

Despite my tech industry background, I don't blog; I'd get too sucked in, frankly (I don't do Facebook either) and don't like sharing too much in an easily identifiable way (though on AM I'm sure I could be identified easily if someone was interested in doing so). How much info you share on the web/twitter/etc is purely generationally based, apparently. Millenials or whatever they call them see their online personas as an extension of themselves and are perfectly happy letting it all hang out there (quite literally in some cases); older generations don't - they know if it's on the web, it's there forever & the web is an extension of your "brand" according to a conference I was at recently, and needs to be "managed" as such. So, be careful what you blog.

[supermother]

I've just about never posted anywhere without giving away enough for someone or other to identify me so I always try to ensure I only say what I would stand by and be happy to disclose.

Some people say far too much. By all means breach your own privacy but I am not happy about the way many parents breach the privacy rights of their children before the children are of an age to give an informed consent.

[KM]

Never say anything on a blog that you could not stand being read aloud to your worst enemy as evidence.

Dull but wise.

[Jane2]

It's an interesting conundrum where journalists are concerned. I wouldn't use my real name under any circumstances, but journalists seem happy to lay themselves on the line.

Do you receive hate mail? I did, twice, after having letters of the old-fashioned kind published in newspapers. (One of them The Times, in the days when they included full address details).

Jane Shilling once wrote in her column about the ethical position of using her son, Alexander, as material. He was, of course, fascinating, (real-life tidbits), and we loved it, but by this time he had grown up enough to be completely aware, and I wonder how that feels.

Jennifer, can you tell us where Jane Shilling has gone? I miss her a lot.

Back to the question: no holds barred? You must be joking. I know enough about hard drives to know that nothing ever completely disappears, and you can be tracked down, no matter what alias you use.

Who would want to be involved in a court case or something, or a divorce, and have all one's old blog posts dug out as evidence?

Call me paranoid, but there you have it.

[Whimsey]

Surely no journo should use their real name either!!!

[Jennifer Howze]

Wait, I blog with my real name. Just not about my sex life

[Whimsey]

No one should blog in their real name. Fatal. Probably actionable too....