With all new technology, there’s always some sort of repercussions that no one sees coming until they’re here. Twitter and Facebook keep people in touch but we’ve all heard stories or experienced the humiliation of mom seeing those recently posted pictures of her pride and joy drunk at a bachelorette party. Or calling in sick to work but a coworker sees comments about the great day spent at Disney Land. I’m not one to play hooky from work and I’m not a drinker so neither of those apply to me but I did experience a flurry of worry when I accepted a friend request an ex from two decades ago. OMG what  r u thnkng. R u nsane?  Wow he looks like crap were the messages I received. It took a few posts and some phone calls (yes I use the phone to talk not just text) to assure genuinely concerned friends that I wasn’t taking a trip to the dark side. I wasn’t taking him back (shudder) and I was long past the bitterness of the breakup but what amazed me is that in only a matter of minutes, I had hastily posted messages from MI, telling me I was making a huge mistake. I hadn’t thought much of accepting his friend request yet others felt the need to weigh in. This made me wonder if by having public outlets grant so much access to one another, are there any secrets left? And once those secrets/thoughts/news has been posted, is it considered acceptable to post judgments on said posts?

When I was a teenager back in the 90s it was a badge of honor to know the favorite foods of all NKOTB, convinced you were privy to something not many others knew. Now there are apps for streaming media to keep all God’s children up to date on Chris Brown’s latest insult to women, Britney’s half-hearted attempt to perform and don’t even get me started on speculation on countless potentially closeted celebrities. Go on nearly any website and more often than not there’s a comment section. I’m not pointing fingers, I do the same on The Frisky. I comment so much that I even proudly have a few followers of my witty musings (thanks!).

Journalists, bloggers, etc., count on feedback. Politicians need it for grandstanding purposes. Those professions expect it. When you put your ideas into cyberspace, are you expected to take the flak because you ‘put it out there’?  Is there a difference between posting your anger on the latest women’s health bill that failed to pass and posting that your BFF is stupid for quitting grad school to be a single mom?

A study entitled Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook published by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication focused on the profile pictures used among their test subjects and found something they hadn’t expected: judgments are common regardless of the relationship and the commenters were more concerned with how they were being perceived, not what their friend originally posted. 

In an article for the Chicago Tribune, Lee Rainie, director of Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project and an expert on social media was quoted “Unfortunately, no one really agrees on what the protocol should be”.

The argument can be made for user-control but there doesn’t seem to be much control these days, witness reality TV. In the end I un-friended my ex. Not because of caving to pressure from friends, but because he’s the same idiot he always was.

Today's lie to myself: men act more mature as they age.