At the same time, children are growing up with this medium as a part of their lives; they don’t understand a world without it. How will their generation share their personal experiences as they mature? What does that mean for our society?

For me? I keep my networks intact (little point in passive-aggressive bridge burning) and keep my strongest negative emotions to myself (no point in sharing those with the world).

In the end, I have much more confidence because I am so public with everything. I never feel alone and the blues or mean reds evaporate that much quicker. It’s probably why I stuck around on the web this long. It brings people together. It makes everything okay…

I look for the real in people. It’s easy to see, even though people feel that they can hide it behind a smile and a handshake in a hotel bar. I understand that any sharing when people who have no real connection to you are going to see it and react to it, and know that their opinion is truly meaningless.

I judge my value based on the handful of people I truly love and trust. And I remove any agenda, that so many “social media” people seem to have, from the things and people that matter most.

I live in public because i view myself as a member of the world community. I live in public because I am proud of what I have become. I also know that at times, my life is sad, and I get just as emo as the next guy. Having people within my community telling me it’s going to be ok outweighs the negative effect of the few who attempt to take advantage of the situation.

Every now and then, I’ll see a thread like the one you’ve posted above. People can’t just leave well enough alone. Even the well-intentioned come off sounding … icky. The most awkward ones come from the people who change their status from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated”. GAG.

I wish that people would just leave the relationship status thing [on FB] turned OFF.