Oops, I Found My Limit
19 Feb. 2008
Although my feelings on social networking sites are decidedly ambiguous (love del.icio.us, indifferent towards Friendster, ambivalent/distrusting/but still a user of Facebook), I have until now not found a social networking site that I really, really do not want to use. The payoff from most of them has been enough for me to go ahead and suck up any slight misgivings I have and use them anyway.
But yesterday I got an invite to use Goodreads, where, basically, you share what you're reading and can make and take book recommendations from friends. You can also view other users' bookshelves. Honestly, given how many of my friends run in publishing circles and read as voraciously as I do, I'm surprised it took so long for me to get an invite to one of these (but, then again, many of my friends aren't as plugged in as I am so I guess it's not that much of a shock). At any rate, I created an account, logged in, and added maybe 5 books to my shelf before I stopped dead in my tracks.
Whoah. Whoah. Whoah. What the fuck am I doing?! I am putting every thing I read, everything that influences my thought, everything, in other words, that I hold most dear and private and central to what makes me tick, online for the entire fucking world to look at?! Librarians and people in both democratic and tyrannical countries have fought tooth and nail, in some cases to the death, to keep reading material private, and I am just blithely putting it up for anyone to take a look at? And not just putting it up there, but storing it so any one could retrieve it and parse it any time? Compare my reading habits to similar and not so similar people?
This may sound crazy, but I literally felt sick when I realized what I was doing. I feel kind of sick describing it now. I really felt like I was just running my ass down the street with no clothes on. I thought of the multiple strongarm attempts the FBI has made with libraries through history to "Red flag" reading material so they can, you know, keep a good, friendly eye on any suspicious people, and I thought I must be absolutely fucking crazy to be putting my shit in this system.
I like the idea of sharing reading suggestions with close friends and confidants, or the occasional recommendation I get from shoulder surfing an interesting book on the subway from a stranger, or overhearing some folks talking about some fascinating tome they've been digging into while standing in line for my morning donut. I like the idea of a personal system shared and run just between friends, with no third party intermediary. But I don't think I can ever bring myself to log back in to Goodreads or other similar systems.
I'm curious to hear if any of my readers feel the same way. Any social networking sites you refuse to use? What do you consider private and what do you consider fair game for the public domain? Am I nuts for thinking that what I read is more sensitive than the movies I like or who I hang out with or even personal intellectual struggles I have (many of which probably make me look like a complete dumbass, but which I have no compunction posting on this public scratchpad)?
3 Mar. 2008 1:30 pm
Perhaps you should also consider wearing a tin foil hat.
The whole point is that the information you choose to release (or not) on a site like goodreads is voluntary. No-one forces you to join nor to input "everything that influences your thought" there. And I'm pretty sure the site has an easy to find privacy policy statement. If you agree with it, make the effort to subscribe to that site and furthermore include your data, then it's implied that you waive what for someone else could be considered private information (and rightly so) in exchange for having your information organized, shared, compared to friends', and so on. If you choose not to be a part of it for your personal reasons, as you clearly do, you are welcomed to delete your account, or not even use the service in the first place. It's not nuts at all, it's just your choice.
But then that's hardly the same as having the access to this information required by law from public locations, such as schools, bookshops and libraries, without any provisions for individual choice, rights or privacy. I don't think it's even fair to compare both scenarios. Or is it?
3 Mar. 2008 5:58 pm
I agree with you concerning the issue of choice, which is precisely why I was so horrified that I, personally, of my own volition, was willingly putting my information into Goodreads' storage.
That said, I do think it's rather naive to fail to draw any parallels at all with situations where such information is required by law. The fact that this data is being stored in a relational database with personally identifiable information attached to it is inherently dangerous, insofar as it is the exact same system that would be used if this data were to be required by law. In other words, the technology itself can be used for good or ill, and I think we ignore that at our own peril. Atomic power, when used to light our homes, is a great and wonderful thing. But that is not the only purpose to which it can be put, should people choose to do so. I think that's worth remembering.
I also think it's worth considering what our own personal limits are concerning how much privacy we are willing to give up in exchange for, as you put it, "having your information organized, shared, compared to friends', and so on." Where do we draw the line between convenience and privacy? How much are we willing to give up of one in order to have more of the other? In asking these questions, I haven't yet determined an answer for myself, which was kind of the purpose of the post - I was surprised at my reaction, especially given that, while the other sites I've used have bothered me a bit, they haven't bothered me enough to stop using them. So I'm intrigued by where different people draw their own lines, and why. Why am I fine with del.icio.us but not Goodreads?
I guess I should note that I tend to question everything. I'm obsessed by the things we tend to take for granted in daily interactions. Not only do they tell us a lot about ourselves, but when we forget the foundations of our beliefs, it often happens that inconsistencies creep in. So I can't really help but force myself to remain aware of the what ifs and the parallels between other things. Drawing parallels helps uncover those inconsistencies and brings you back to the basics and forces you to ask, "well if I responded that way to X, why am I responding differently to Y?"