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)?