When 'Myspace' was Cool

These past few articles have inspired me to take a step back and reminisce on my adolescent social networking days. After reading Boyd, I compared my memories of my younger internet habits to that of what I see the 'tweens' doing now. All I can say is...I hope I wasn't too stupid.

My first dive into the social networking pool was, of course, my awesome myspace page. After playing around with about a thousand different 'skins', as they were called, I finally formatted the html to my liking and then edited my personal information. Luckily, this is where I differ from a majority of youths in social networks sites. Unlike the naive (or brave, I guess you could say) users who provide the who what where when's of their lives for all of the world to see, I kept my profile extremely private for one main reason: my older brothers. I knew that any inappropriate material found on my profile would be confronted and dealt with immediately. It was because of this that my profile didn't seem as 'cool' as my friends may have. I later discovered, however, that the fear I had may have protected me in the long run - or else I may have provided private information about my school, neighborhood, or phone number to anyone in the world who wanted it.

Facebook presents a different challenge however. Now , after moving on from the 'ancient' site that is myspace, The friend factor of the site allows me to feel comfortable about certain information that is provided - such as my school, phone number, and even job that I may have. Perhaps I need to keep the "big brother" mind-frame when assessing the availability of my personal information.