How much to disclose?

Christian Crumlish

The whole idea of living your life partly on the web, partly in public brings to mind new subtleties to the boundary between public and private. There are all kinds of shades of gray, nuances between what’s utterly private and what we are comfortable sharing with everyone on the planet.

Meanwhile, the available tools are for the most part not yet sophisticated enough to allow us to safely dictate exactly what to reveal and to whom. We are stuck with much more blunt instruments: draft vs. publish and possibly password-protection options or the friends and family spheres available at sites like LiveJournal and Flickr.

At the recently revitalized Blogging Blog (it’s now a group weblog), Stephanie Brail examines this issue in Fear of Exposure - How Much Disclosure is Too Much?:

I’ve been blogging on and off for a few years, and also reading various blogs as well. In choosing how much to divulge, consider:

1. Will this hurt your family and friends?
2. Will this put your job in jeopardy?
3. Most importantly: Is such a disclosure really interesting anyway?

I believe number three should be the first and foremost consideration when sharing personal information. Personal information done well can be the most engaging, intimate, and powerful form of writing. Personal information done in an indulgent, self-serving way is simply dull and pointless, and it’s that sort of writing that is damn embarrassing.