Category — Blogiquette or On Blogging

Like external validation, the idea of where my story ends and someone else’s story begins is something I return to over and over and over again.  What you are essentially reading is the argument I have in my head on an on-going basis, and I go back and forth about it as a consumer, as a possible subject, and as a producer — three different roles.  We all play at least two of these, and artists in any medium — from painters to bloggers — play the third one.  But these thoughts are not meant to invoke guilt.  On the contrary, I want a conversation.  I want us all thinking and talking about these very blurry lines because it’s a different world now that it’s an online world.

As a consumer, I obviously love it when people write about other people.  If they didn’t do it, I wouldn’t have my entertainment, I wouldn’t have my knowledge, I wouldn’t have all the things I get out of reading blogs and books.  I’m glad when friends post pictures of their kids on Facebook so I can see their kids age and keep up with their life.  When people write about things that are personal, it makes me feel less alone knowing that we all are struggling with this big, messy, wonderful thing called life.  So, yes, I absolutely agree that I’ve benefited tremendously from other people writing about their children or their spouse or themselves.

As a possible subject — someone who is very skittish when people write about her (while I don’t mind people writing about my words or ideas, I am very uncomfortable when people write about me) — I keep in mind how I would feel if someone wrote a blog about me, and I try to behave accordingly so the twins will do unto me in the future (oh please please please don’t start a blog about me, children).  I think this fact colours my thinking a lot.  If I was an extroverted person, it probably wouldn’t bother me to have people writing about me.  In fact, I might eat it up with a spoon.  But I’m not an extroverted person.  I’m most definitely an introverted person, and I always think about whether the people I’m writing about are introverted or extroverted people.  Whether they’ll enjoy reading something about themselves, or whether even an effusive, kindhearted post will make them squirm uncomfortably.

The twins know that you all know about them.  They know numbers — how many people read about them — and they know subject matter — what I post about them.  As long as I stay on one side of the subject matter line, and I afford them their privacy by not bringing them along to events, they are okay with things so far.  But I always worry that we’ll end up with an A.A. Milne/Christopher Robin situation that Marjorie Ingall wrote about in her Tablet magazine article when she explained why she’s not writing about her children anymore.

Milne said in an interview,

In pessimistic moments, when I was trudging London in search of an employer wanting to make use of such talents as I could offer, it seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.

This sort of sums up my fears: good writing is always enjoyable for the consumer, but it isn’t always enjoyable for the subject.  And which way will it go: is the subject thrilled to be immortalized, to know that their life influenced the lives (or at least the thoughts) of others?  Or does the subject feel as if every word took something away from him?  That each word we place online or in a book scoops away a fragment of their being and individuality, until all that is left is a paper version of themselves, two-dimensional, like Jackie Draper turning into Jackie Paper.  And yes, Jackie Paper was created because Jackie Draper couldn’t go on the adventures; he was too depressed.  But still, we all know that Jackie Paper wasn’t real, wasn’t even close to being as three-dimensional and unique as Jackie Draper.  Is that what we’re doing when we write about another person: taking their Jackie Draperness and making a facsimile of their self to present to others?

And at what point does the need to transmit information, to giving away valuable advice, come before the feelings of the subject?  There are going to be times when the person doesn’t want us to write about them, but it becomes more important to get the story out there than it does to take the subject’s preferences into consideration.  But then aren’t there also other times when their feelings get to trump the dissemination of their story?  Even if we have a burning need to tell it?

Which I guess takes us to my role as a producer.  I think there is a fallacy here that few of us remember until someone points it out: there is a big difference between writing and publishing.  Sometimes they become wrapped together when we choose to publish something we write, but writing can also be kept as a separate entity from publishing.  I completely understand that need to write and can stand behind it without hesitation.  It’s the publishing part that gives me pause.  Do we need to publish?  Some would answer yes, especially if they get more out of the conversation than they do writing the piece.  And some, if honest, would have to answer no.  I don’t know where I fall on that continuum.  I used to believe I needed to publish.  Now, at a different age, I’m not sure.

I think there are things I need to publish and things I don’t, and the struggle for me is knowing which things I’m publishing gratuitously and which ones I’m publishing out of necessity.  There are things I need to write that can also remain as a draft; everything I need to know about myself or the situation extracted from the act of writing before I ever reach the act of hitting publish; and that is true for blog posts just as much as it’s true for books.

I don’t think it’s unethical to write about other people, nor do I think it’s immoral.  But I do think it’s disingenuous to think that what we write doesn’t matter to our subject as long as we’re getting something out of it.  To think that it won’t affect them, that they’ll be fine with it, that no harm no foul if everyone else is doing it too.  That is too weak an argument to support such a heavy truth.  It doesn’t matter how anyone else is treating their subject.  It only matters how you are treating your subject; whether that subject is your partner or your siblings or your children or your parents or the annoying neighbour down the street who comes to your bunco game.  Sometimes we know our subjects well.  And sometimes we don’t really know how our subjects will feel because our subjects themselves don’t know how they feel about the story floating into the universe.

Within a single story, I can point out the facts that belong to the twins and I can point out the facts that belong to me, and what I struggle with are the facts that are entwined around each other and cannot be picked apart or owned by a single person.  The twins are such an enormous part of my life that it’s impossible to speak about myself without mentioning them.  It would be unrealistic to never write about them.  Which means that it’s a balancing act of taking what is rightfully my story but then being mindful that when I take from what is our story, I am taking something.  And that act of removal might either add to their being or detract.  And I just don’t know which one.

On two side notes: One, I am so grateful for the comments you’ve made every time I write on this topic: it helps me make sense of my own thoughts (hmmm… a point in favour of hitting publish; of writing not being enough).  And two, I am finishing up the tutorial for moving to a self-hosted blog and I’ll have that up tomorrow.  It is kind of long, but that’s just because I literally walked you through step-by-step.  So feel free to skim.

Would it be cool if I started a blog about you?  I won’t give your name (though I’ll provide enough identifying pieces of information that everyone will know it’s you).  In this blog, I talk about how awesome you are.  I talk about your accomplishments at work, or I’ll tell funny stories such as the time when you thought a dog biscuit was a cookie and you ate it.  Sometimes I’ll post pictures of you and other times I’ll post videos, just funny things that I capture with my phone.

The thing is that you don’t blog, so if I didn’t do this, no one would know just how incredibly awesome you are.

I mean, sure there are assholes who come by and write crappy things about you in my comment section to be hurtful.  But that’s just the Internet.  I mean, those trolls don’t know you; they can’t see that you are just twenty kinds of fantastic.  So you shouldn’t let those comments bother you because those people can suck it.

Back to you.  And this blog.  About your awesomeness.

Okay, I’m not going to start a blog about you, but that was all I could think about when I read this article from CNN that Esperenza sent me.  We were both drawn to the same quote:

On the most basic level, we want to be able to tell our story about our lives. But, in the case of our children, a permanent and public story has already been recorded about them before they have a chance to decide whether they want to participate or even whether the narrative is true to their own vision of self.

And I guess that caps off everything I was trying to say in those last few posts about why I don’t post about the kids (part one and part two).  About the concept of ownership; and whether thirteen is too young for them to truly comprehend what it means to put your information out there on the Internet, whether that information is in the form of a story or facts or pictures.

It goes back to that phrase “the chance to decide” — and taking away that choice from someone else.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing a blog about you without your permission, and the reality is that I can’t really get permission from the twins because they don’t really know what they’re agreeing to.  But it goes beyond pleasantries or control for control’s sake.  It brings in the reality that we don’t know how other people use that information.  What assumptions are made about the kids based on what I wrote or what pictures were uploaded vs. what the other person observed on their own.  What sort of people to you understand the twins to be… before you’ve ever met them.  And good qualities may be equally damaging as what we perceive to be bad qualities.  What if they don’t see themselves in the same way?  What if my vision limits them or puts pressure on them?  What if other people start having expectations for them not based on their own interactions with the twins but based on things I write?

I think the exact same things — by the way — in writing about Josh or writing about myself.  I think about it in terms of celebrities or other public figures.  Or people who become public figures because they’re thrust into the media due to circumstance.  I think about this shit all. the. time.

Many commenters on that article missed the point: the authors were pointing out that adults want control over their privacy.  We want to have control over our data.  We freak out when we perceive others trespassing on our privacy.  We would be upset if someone out there was writing about us and posting our personal stories.  So really, it doesn’t make sense when we write about others; including children. When we post stories about others people or pictures of other people; especially when we can’t really get permission.  Even if it’s an amazing picture that we know others would enjoy looking at, or a really funny story they’d enjoy reading.

Lest you think that I am better at circumspection, I just want to point out the numerous stories I tell about the twins.  They’re all ones that they’ve approved me posting, and I stay away from their hard limits (oooooh, all fifty shades of them).  I step over the line.

What brings me back on this side of the line is the thought that the twins could turn around one day and start a blog about me.  They could write a blog giving me a funny nickname so my name wouldn’t be Google-able, but you’d know it was me.  And they’d post about how awesome I am.  They’d talk about the new book I’m writing, or tell you funny stories such as the time I forgot to pack pants.  And sometimes they’d post pictures of me or videos.

And yeah, the same trolls might come by and write terrible things about me in their comment section, and I’d have to read them and swallow hard and think about how I wouldn’t have to deal with those types of comments if my kids weren’t writing about me.  And sometimes they’d post stories that would make me really anxious to know they’re out there.  And sometimes they’d post photos that they love but I find really unflattering.

Knowing that there is the possibility of payback keeps me on this side of the line.

Photo Credit: Jef Nickerson via Flickr

Updated at the Bottom

Okay, so continuing yesterday’s dissection of various social media platform’s terms of service (TOS), a bunch of questions or comments came up about Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest (or really, pick your social media platform — they all have similar TOS) that I’m going to attempt to answer.

Before we begin, I want to preface this by saying I use other social media platforms.  I think they’re wonderful tools of communication.  I just use them with this knowledge in the back of my head, and it colours the decisions I make about what I post.  But I just want that clear: I do post on Twitter, Facebook, et al.

So now let’s talk content since we discussed images and video yesterday.

Go back to the TOS samples I posted yesterday.  You are granting the same rights to your words whenever you post words on those sites.  So that totally amusing, pithy saying you came up with?  They can use that.  The tag line you have for your blog that you also post as the tagline to your Twitter account?  They can use that.  That clever slogan you came up with for Jif peanut butter while you were joking around with your friends?  They have the right to sub-license that slogan to Jif, collect the money for it, and not pass any of that money on to you (royalty free!).

Now, do I believe that this is likely to happen to you?  No, but it could happen to you.  So you just need to know that in order to set your comfort zone.  And again, this is about giving permission.

You still own your content, which means that YOU can also take your pithy statement and slap it on a t-shirt.  It means that by granting them these rights, that you are not losing your rights.  And that’s all well and good.  But you’ve also given any of these sites the right to use your content in that manner as well.  If you are comfortable with that possibility (and I am often comfortable with that possibility in the same way that I am often comfortable posting pictures of myself but not others), you should post that content.  If you are not comfortable with that possibility, you should post it elsewhere or not post it at all.

Which brings us to two different topics that meet at a central point: protecting your content.

If you read those TOS (and the TOS of pretty much any social media site), they have the right to close your account without warning.  Unlike a self-hosted blog that you pay for, free sites are allowed to wipe away your work.  Therefore, if you care about that content a lot, I would keep a copy.  It’s easiest on Twitter: just use a service such as All My Tweets to see them on one page, and then cut-and-paste a copy onto a Word doc.  Simple.  It’s also pretty easy on Facebook.  You can follow their instructions on downloading your content.  I am less familiar with how to do this on other sites, or whether the possibility exists.  When I post on sites other than my own, I always save a copy of my post as a Word doc.  I would lose the comments and such if they chose to delete my work, but at least I would have my thoughts.

The other side of protecting your content is investing yourself in sites that are under your control.  It doesn’t fit my personality nor my preferences on the Internet to invest a lot of energy into building huge followings on Twitter.  Twitter is lovely, but it’s also outside of my control.  They can decide tomorrow to erase my account and all of my followers are gone.  Same with Facebook.  Which freaks me out a little bit.

The same goes for free Blogger and WordPress accounts.  I think most people should start with a free account to see if they enjoy blogging.  But once they’ve determined that they do enjoy blogging and they plan to keep going with it indefinitely, they should switch to a self-hosted account if they can afford to do so.  Again, this only matters if you feel strongly about your content.  Some people look at their blog as they do a sandcastle — something fun to build or beautiful in the moment, but if it washes away, they’re okay with that too.  Other people look at their blog as something more akin to a concrete statue and they want a promise that it will be there in the future.  Self-hosting does that.

In between are the people who don’t need it to be concrete but would be sad if it washed away, and those people should simply do a poor man’s blog backup continuously — you will always have your content, but you can release your fears of losing your space.  Because the possibility of losing your space is built into the TOS as well.

There is two things we’re talking about here: (1) permanence and (2) rights.  The permanence part is clear: if you self-host, you control your space.  As long as you continue to pay for it and you don’t trespass on your host’s TOS, you have your space.  The same is not true for free WordPress or Blogger sites nor for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest accounts.  You own the content, meaning, you hold the rights to it.  If you want to publish it in a book, you can.  If you want to create photocopies of it, you can.  But THEY own the site, the space online.  And they graciously give it to you for free.

So I think the important thing to think about is whether you are more of a sandcastle person or a concrete sculpture person, or do you fall somewhere in between where you neither need the permanence of concrete but you don’t love the impermanence of sand?  And in knowing that about yourself, are you making choices on the Internet that fit your preferences?

I know that I lean much more heavily towards concrete than sand — the numerous boxes in my storage room saving artifacts from childhood are a case in point — so self-hosting not only makes sense, but it is the best choice for me once I look at the TOS of various free blogging platforms.  I put my greatest efforts into my blog, and less of an effort into other social media platforms just because I like the amount of control and permanence the blog affords me.  It’s also about ownership: I like to own the words I like.  Which is to say that I also don’t mind placing my words elsewhere (comments, other social media platforms, even guest blogging), but I am picky about which words I give to others and which ones I keep for myself in terms of giving away the rights of usage.  I don’t expect other social media platforms will use my words, but I also don’t want to give them permission to do so.

Are you more of a sand person, a concrete person, or — like me — do you fall somewhere in between while leaning more towards one end than the other?  And more importantly, do your choices online reflect those preferences right now?

Photo Credit: Hendricks Photos via Flickr.

Updated:

If people are interested, I can write up a tutorial on how to move to self-hosting.  It’s not that difficult to do.  I sort of see it as an insurance policy for my blog rather than the ability to utilize all the cool things self-hosting includes (such as hosting sound files or video).

I didn’t get my driver’s license the day I turned 16.  My parents made me wait until later in the summer when I had logged more hours of practice on highways and they were more certain that I was capable of making intelligent, split-second decisions before they placed me behind the wheel of a two ton instrument of death.  Okay, so cars aren’t actually used in that manner — they aren’t a weapon built to mow down unsuspecting people — but they can be used in that manner by the very nature of their defining characteristics.  They are heavy, they are powerful, they are controlled by people.  Was I cranky at 16?  Of course.  But now I understand why my parents made me wait (and am sort of grateful that they did).

I hope the twins equally understand why I probably won’t allow them to start various social media accounts when they turn 13.

We’ve been allowing them to practice drive on the Internet on sites with user-friendly terms of service (TOS).  We’ve had a few social media fender benders — learning incidents about what not to upload, as it were — so we’re lucky that we chose sites wisely for their first forays into online communication.  It was pretty low stakes, and we were able to undo the problematic postings.  The same won’t be true when they get to the biggies: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest (let’s call them FTGP for this post, pronounced fit-gip).

Just as cars aren’t actually weapons but have the potential to become a lethal object, FTGP are not image license sellers in the same transparent vein as Getty Images, but they have the potential to become an image license seller with their TOS.  Am I making you gulp?  Good.  Then read on because I think TOS and release forms are so important to understand and read before you create an account or sign them.  And most people I know start accounts or sign forms without reading them and understanding them completely.

Get that?  You’re in the majority if you create an account without reading the TOS first.  I am in the minority with my extreme anal-retentiveness.  This post is not about judging; it’s about arming you with information so you can make good decisions on current or future social media sites (and frankly, this information is applicable to the release forms you often sign with activities and events).

Let’s start with some keywords that we always want to notice in regards to a contract when it comes to images:

• transferable (meaning, they can give someone else the same rights they have to your photo*)
• sub-licensable (meaning, they can license your image to a third-party vendor and collect a fee)
• royalty free (meaning, that money they could get for sub-licensing will not be passed along to you)
• worldwide (meaning, this is as broad as you can get)
• adapt (they’re allowed to change your content)
• modify (they can really really change your content)
• perpetual (the contract is self-renewing)
• irrevocable (you can’t end the agreement)

Those are all the words I scan for immediately, and if they appear, that’s my cue to proceed with caution.  Which doesn’t mean that I don’t use the site.  I just proceed with caution.  I have an account with most social media sites.

So which of the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest TOS contain some of those key trigger words?  The answer: all of them**.

• Facebook: You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).

• Twitter: By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).

• Google+: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. (This new wording is a step up from their old wording: “You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”  But I have to be frank, even if the wording has changed, the idea is still there.)

• Pinterest: you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify (e.g., re-format), re-arrange, and distribute your User Content on Pinterest for the purposes of operating and providing the Service(s) to you and to our other Users.

(Side note: the TOS are obviously much longer than this and contain a lot of other information.  I’ve pulled out these sections to explain what rights you grant the site when you create an account.)

Do I truly fear that FTGP is going to sell my image to a third-party vendor, and then the license for that photo will be purchased by an online magazine to use as the visual in an article titled “Ten Kinds of Women You Want to Avoid?”  No.  I think it’s a very remote possibility.  But do I believe that FTGP gave themselves the ability to do just that if I post my pictures to their site, well, yes, that is clearly part of the contract.  And that raises my red flag because unless that possibility is something they foresee doing in the future, there is no reason to include it in a terms of service.

My philosophy is that if someone tells me they might do something in the future, believe them.***

Of course, even if you choose not to participate in the medium, it doesn’t mean you’re actually protected.  For instance, if I am on Facebook and I take a picture of you this summer and upload it on Facebook, I have just given Facebook the right to sub-license this picture of you.  That picture could be sold to a third party vendor and used in an advertisement.  So it’s of you, but someone else owns the picture because they took it, and they uploaded it to Facebook and set this chain of events in motion.

And THAT is exactly what I think of when I talk about uploading pictures of my children online.  I realized in reading reactions to those posts that we’re all working with different information, and I am focusing solely on those TOS and what they mean in the largest sense of the word.  In that last paragraph, it was between me and you, me making a choice for you and you being cranky with that choice.  Which is why I don’t place the twins in that position, making a choice for them that cannot be undone (remember the words perpetual and irrevocable).

I don’t post ANY pictures without asking the subject in the picture if they are okay having their picture uploaded to my blog or another site.  When I ask an adult, I expect them to be able to make a sound decision thinking through the possible consequences of having their image out there.  But I can’t ask a child and receive an answer that takes into account the possible consequences.  I can only get an answer that boils down to likey/no likey.  So I personally err on the side of posting nothing because they can always make the choice in the future to post something.

Which goes back to that age 13 threshold — I just don’t think most 13-year-olds can comprehend what I wrote above and understand how far-reaching small decisions can be.  Once I think they truly understand it (and aren’t just reciting it by rote), I’ll let them have an account on a social media site that has broad TOS.  Until then, they need to stick to sites that don’t use this sort of language in their TOS because there are sites that do a lot to protect their younger users, proceeding with the knowledge that kids don’t always make the best decisions.****

So why do I believe that sites put this language into their contracts even if utilizing it is a long shot?  My guess is that because all of these sites are businesses who need to turn a profit in order to keep the people who run it employeed.  Just as brick-and-mortar businesses have assets such as tangible property, YOU and your content are the assets of FTGP.  Social media websites need more avenues for collecting revenue beyond advertising, and I actually support being used in a bunch of ways.  Facebook gives me an online space to socialize for free, so I don’t mind if they include me as a number in an information roundup that they sell to big business.  I consider it my payment for using the site.  But while I don’t mind non-identifying information to be used to help soda companies market their products to me, I do mind my images being possibly sub-licensed.  So I don’t upload them.

See, simple solution.

You may have read this post and still come to the same conclusion that you are perfectly comfortable posting your images on these sites, and I fully support that.  We all have different comfort zones, and I know that I am on the far end of the spectrum.  I always liken it to emergency room doctors who won’t allow their child to skateboard.  We both know the skateboarding casualty statistics but where I feel comfortable accepting the risk, that doctor does not because he has seen the damage firsthand.  And perhaps as a social media editor, I have seen the damage firsthand from people who have had their image sub-licensed and were upset with the results and while the risk is the same for you and for me, I make a different decision based on my experience.

And just as that emergency room doctor deeply respects my parenting choices to allow skateboarding, I deeply respect your decision to upload your image or your child’s image online.  It really needs to be a case of to each their own, with everyone being mindful of their own comfort zone.

The point of this post is not to make you scared, but to make you knowledgeable.  To turn you into a TOS ninja and make you social media savvy.  Now go kick ass.

And actually, show of hands: how many people learned something new from this post and what was it?  I ask this because I may do a mind-dump of all sorts of other things like this that I use to make my decisions if this is enlightening as opposed to annoying.

* Of course, they have no rights if you don’t use their site.  But once you use their site, you are agreeing to their conditions.  Let’s put it this way, nothing in this world is free even if sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest look like it on the surface.  They need to make money, and that money needs to come from something more than just advertisers.  Remember, you — the user — and your content become an asset.

** Anything you put out there can be taken and utilized in a way you don’t like.  But this is about giving permission to use any image you upload.  When you agree to the terms of service and build your account (or keep your account open after the TOS changes), you give these rights to the site.

*** I recently had two experiences with photo releases.  The first place allowed me to remove that clause from their contract so I signed it.  The second place wouldn’t allow me to remove that clause so I didn’t sign it because I had to question why that clause was important enough to them that they would rather lose my business than change it.

**** I was really pleased, for instance, to see that Pottermore does not allow kids to choose their user name therefore ensuring that kids don’t use their real, full name online.  Then again, they lost points from me when they told kids to enter their birthdate.

Photo Credit: Slosada via Flickr.

You know how I asked if social media had the potential to do more damage than good?  Yesterday’s comments were literally the catalyst that set life back on track for myself and the ChickieNob.  There were both the smart words that you handed to me that I could pass along to her in order to help her make sense of the idea of broken promises (and whether to keep hers), but there was also this… intangible wave of support… I’m having difficulty putting this into words.  I guess it’s like this: you know how when you do a trust fall, you have that moment when your body touches down against all the hands and you’re cushioned?  That’s how I felt receiving your comments and guidance.  And once that happened, I was able to take a deep breath, clear my mind, get the next idea for the ChickieNob, and move forward.  I wish I could write more concretely about it, but it involves other people and therefore doesn’t feel quite like my story to tell.  But suffice to say that like Pippin, we’re on the right path.  Because of all of you.

You’ve probably noticed that I’m thinking a lot about external validation lately.  Sort of hard to hide it when you write three posts (1, 2, and 3) about it over a month, not to mention the Ashley Judd post.  It is hard to grapple with the idea of this thing — the Internet — which brings such joy and such tsuris.  That the very same thing can unite us and divide us — sometimes on the very same day.  You can write a post, get ten comments that validate your feelings and make you feel connected to something and additionally get ten comments that negate your feelings and make you feel alienated from humanity.  Or not get any comments or page views at all and feel equally isolated.

It is very easy to feel alone — to feel lonely — amongst the billions of people on the Internet.  It is as if all of us are traveling the same road, the same tubes of the Internet, yet some feel as if they are in a car and some feel as if they are in a bus.  And some of the bus people might wish for the solitude of the car and some of the car people might wish for the camaraderie of the bus (I’m picturing the camp bus more than the public transport here in town), though many are fine with how they’re traveling this road just as long as they are free of blown tires and other obstacles.

On a good day, I feel like the blogosphere is humming.  It hums, at least, for me.  I like dropping in on all the various blogs along this road.  I like my phone buzzing to tell me that people are communicating with me.  It’s all good.  On a bad day, it sounds like out-of-tune guitar strings.  I feel stretched too thin.  I feel lonely amongst everyone else.  But mostly, it feels out of my control — it always IS out of my control, but on bad days it also feels out of my control.  There is nothing I can do to make it right, to make it hum again.  It ebbs and flows even as my actions remain the same.

I realized the finger trap nature to the Internet long ago — the harder I tug, the more stuck I get.  It doesn’t help to tug at the collective Internet.  Sometimes the only thing you can do is step away, or deep breathe and continue to do the same actions knowing that the waning will once again wax.  Or vice versa.

I’ve been turning off my phone for two hours every day while I do yoga or go running.  It started with yoga; the studio just felt like the sort of place where I should shut out all external distractions — even good distractions.  And then one day, I realized that the time I had the phone off had become a sanctuary instead of a stress.  It had a starting point and an end point.  It wasn’t long enough for lots of things to pile up that would need my attention.  It was just this little bite of time where I had no access to this thing that brings me happiness and stress and where the Internet also had no access to me.

I have never had a desire for a long digital sabbatical.  If someone wants to unplug, I think they should unplug.  If someone doesn’t really want to unplug, I don’t see a reason for them to unplug just because there are posts on the Internet saying how great it is.  I don’t think it’s the only way to reach a place of balance where you can allow the Internet to wax and wane without dragging you with it. (Though I think even if you’re cognizant of the movements of the Internet — or friendships or relationships or fill in the blank with anything that has the tendency to change over time — you can’t help but be emotionally affected if you become emotionally affected.  It’s hard to talk yourself out of your feelings.)

It is two years on from when I wrote about the way the Internet can affect my mood.  I am no closer to being in a place where the Internet doesn’t affect my mood.  It feels a bit like the position “crow” in yoga — some days I can get it and some days I can’t, and I don’t really know why that is nor do I have the strongest desire to be master over this position.  Even when I have it, I can’t hold it very long.  And that is how I feel about the Internet and the validation I take from my writing or interactions with others.  I sometimes get it and I sometimes don’t, and I have no idea why.  It sometimes affects me and it sometimes doesn’t, and I have no idea why.  I have been trying to let it go and move with it rather than trying to make it move with me.  Sometimes I am successful and sometimes I am not.

Which is why I start this same conversation over and over again with you.  I keep returning to the same ideas and broaching the same topic with new analogies or new entrances with the hope that one day it will all make sense.  And until then, we can talk about it; acknowledge it.  Allow each other to know that we mostly grapple with the same thoughts just with different specifics colouring them.