Getting blogged down: The technologically tangled web of the net – minding what I say when saying what’s on my mind.

My grandmother lived her life in an internet free world. I doubt she knew what a blog was, and I suspect Facebook was only in it’s infancy, or not even around, before she departed the world. In her lifetime she saw the advent of tv, video, CDs and DVD’s and computers, (though she refused to use the latter 3). My kids live in a parallel universe to the great grandmother they never had the pleasure of meeting. They will never know a world without mobile phones, computers, internet and instant knowledge.

I come from a world half way between. I first used a “Commodore 64” in late primary school, a “BBC Micro” in high school and a “Apple Macintosh” in my upper years of university. I used heavy texts and journals to conduct my research, and hand wrote or used a typewriter (remember those?) or word processor (or those?) for all my assignments at university up until about 3rd year. I finally got my own email account in my final (4th) year. I had a second hand PC and dial up internet access (does that even exist anymore?) when I moved out of home at the age of 23 and broadband in the first house I bought (with my husband) at the age of 30! I succumbed to peer pressure in my early 30’s and joined Facebook.

At the age of 34, at 7 months pregnant, I was finally convinced by my husband and immediate family that I should have a mobile phone. For my 34th birthday I was given a second hand Nokia with a prepaid $20 sim card. I really didn’t want a mobile and if I could get away without having one I seriously would. I only got a smart phone about a year ago and still don’t have or use a data plan (only wifi). I still hate that feeling of being always available, always “on call” (and consequently usually have my phone on silent or not with me) and I hate how people never seem to give you their full attention because they are constantly attending to every alert from their phone. I even find myself guilty of that when the wifi and the ringer on my phone are enabled.

At the age of 40 I reached the stage where I began to think and reflect a lot (even more than normal for me) and I felt like I had something to share that people might actually be interested in hearing. My statuses on Facebook started to become a bit too deep and meaningful for that context (to the point where concerned friends were asking if I was ok!!) and Facebook notes which I had started to use for sharing recipes and longer ideas was too clunky a medium. So after a combination of external encouragement and internal personal need, this blog was born.

Initially it was a means of sharing recipe ideas, talking about lifestyle and health choices and then, because I wanted to communicate with other martial arts addicts, (and not “nerdjack” {gotta love that new word I saw on Facebook} every conversation with non martial arts addicts [since most of my friends and family other than those I train with fall into that category]), I started blogging about training in karate and my journey down that path.

Weirdly (or not), my blog started getting more of a following from karate nerds than recipe junkies which could mean a number of things which I may go into at a later stage (although followers may like to comment on here as to their thoughts).

A few people locally who I train with started to follow along too. This was good and bad. On the positive side, it seemed a good forum to share thoughts with training buddies; we are generally all rushing off to the rest of our lives and too busy to talk about it at the time. On the not so positive side, it has been hard to make things anonymous or de-identified enough within the small fishpond in which I swim. I have tried to be careful but evidently it hasn’t been careful enough. It’s one thing to be followed by people who don’t know you and another to feel like you are being analysed or that you are trying to analyse others in a more public way. It’s also one thing to expose yourself to potential trolls but quite another to expose others.

After some constructive and (to my own hindsight), actually fairly charitable feedback from a friend I respect very much, I actually decided to make private a few previous posts and comments, because, even though I didn’t say anything negative, I said things that (given my local audience at least) could potentially be identifiable and (in the more general context) could be and / or were analysed negatively or otherwise and / or commented on publicly by others. I apologise to anyone to whom this might apply and would ask you to contact me if there are any issues with anything I have written or write in future.

Like with all technology and all things in this life, I am still a learner at social media and within the blogosphere. I am still a “work in progress” and I am still human and therefore….err…..um (sorry bad joke).

With technology and the age of the internet comes great responsibility and risks; for my kids and also for me. As a parent I need to be aware of things like cyber bullying and cyber stalking / cyber grooming and internet footprint. As a blogger, I have a responsibility to protect me and them and everyone else. In short, I need to be mindful of what I say when saying what’s on my mind.

My grandmother always used to tell me “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. As I am currently not good at blogging “nothing at all”, I will have to endeavour to blog things which are unambiguously “nice” and generally more general :).