D – Diary
04/04/2014 5 Comments
After hitting on a big, obvious topic yesterday like characters, I thought it would be good to go with a bit more narrow of a writing topic, and that is the Diary. My main thought and question on diaries is, do they still exist? Or at least, anything close to the extent that they may have once?
I think it’s the Internet that has changed this experience. All of a sudden, things people might have once done entirely in private – like keep a Diary, or scrapbooking – have become things that are instead done publicly, constantly, online. This is perhaps even moreso true with the advent of Social Media, and all the things we can do now to share our lives, our interests, with others. However, I would say it goes back further than that.
Because before Social Media as we know it now – Facebook and Twitter and the whole nine yards – there was LiveJournal, and there were discussion forums. People were finding other, like-minded people. From around the globe. So all of a sudden, keeping a Diary about how you’re all alone, or no one gets you, is one way you can approach things… or you can go out there (online), find some like-minded people, and get talking there. I know couples who have met successfully online from great distances, and you know what? It works.
And for keeping a journal or Diary, there was LiveJournal, and you could do so there. And now we have blogs, and we can do all sorts of things anonymously, or with our name attached, however we like it. Or, a little of both. I do a little of both, I suppose.
So I guess the related question is: do we even value this sort of privacy anymore? Maybe the need for a Diary is now, more than ever before. Things that we feel a need to write down, but that maybe we shouldn’t tell the whole world about. Maybe that’s a skill we should be teaching to children these days – writing down some of those thoughts privately, getting them out while still keeping them contained.
What do you think? Have Diaries seen their day? Or are they still being written out there – and should they be? Let me know in the comments below!
About CompGeeksDavid
DBCII 
I have only been able to consistently keep a diary on the internet. I used to try to keep journals when I was younger, but after a handful of entries I always lost interest. Something about having an audience keeps me writing the mundane things in my life, as though anyone cares but me.
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That is actually probably the foundation of the idea of Social Media – an audience feeds into our desire to share our thoughts with the world. And it seems to be proving that we like to do so! Thanks for sharing!
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And I see how you found me… as your blog is the Diary of an Aspiring Writer 🙂 http://njmagas.wordpress.com/
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Amen! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen things on social media that really should have been placed in a private diary instead. I think that handwritten letters, invitations, and journal entries are more personal and special for others to read. As for sending your wedding invitations on social media – that’s just tacky!
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Tacky and yet probably done more and more these days.
That’s a good point about the contents being special, though… there’s not much special on the Internet anymore. Although I read that part of the appeal of Snapchat and some of the other new forms of Social Media is that there is a limit to how long the item stays online, which you can set. So it breathes specialness back into what you share, all of a sudden. Which really just means we have a desire for those sorts of more special, direct, private, or personal communications!
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