Not Everyone Want’s To Be Online

As shocking as it seems, I’ve discovered recently that there’s members of my family who deliberately don’t want to be online.  Siblings, Extended Family, they are all in the early to mid 20′s so far, and see an ‘online’ profile as a waste of time.  They don’t want their pictures online, they don’t want to have an online profile, they don’t want to be found online, period.

It’s interesting that in a time when increasingly more kids are online, and more people are connected to each other, that some people deliberately don’t want their lives online.  The reasons differ… For some it’s just privacy, wanting to be able to keep their personal life private.  For some, it’s to avoid having their images plastered all over the internet.  For others still, it’s the desire to not waste time, endlessly being wasted in mindless games on platforms like Facebook, and wasting time on social networks, when they can spend their time being more productive doing other things.

I think the combination of lack of knowledge and increasing levels of blunders in the public domain, in the UK make people even more uncomfortable with the scale of online visibility that’s possible with a single picture.  Not everyone is as open, and or as comfortable as I am in sharing themself so openly and publicly.  I guess being part of the family, I have to respect their wishes to not be plastered all over the internet.  But then, that does beg the question, morally who gets to choose which photos go online and which ones don’t? I could just take the self-righteous approach, and say that any photos that I’ve taken, I’ve automatically got the right to do with what I want.  But then that’s just bound to start stirring up trouble within the family, and to be honest, I would much rather stay on solid terms with my family than worry about what photos I can and can’t show of my family.  After all, photos on the internet are temporary, whilst family is blood, and that bond matters to me more.

How about you? Do you ever have your spouse wishing you didn’t blog about family life online? Or do you have kids or extended family that doesn’t want to be the object of your blogging?  Would love to hear some of your thoughts/feedback and comments and insights, either in the comments below, or as a trackback from your own blog post addressing this question/issue..

Welcome to Family 2.O

Welcome to the home of Family 2.O

This blog is all about being a family in a technologically connected society.  It’s about listening to the conversations that happen between parents and children, about exploring the dynamics, and the tensions that arise out of living in a hyper connected society.  How do you deal with the digitally distributed aunts and uncles? How do you make sure that those photos of you drunken, and half naked, don’t end up embarassing you with your parents, the next time they log onto Facebook?  How do you make sure your children are safe, when they’re surfing the internet?

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I definitely want to join in the conversation.  I want to be a part of the story, and be in on the conversation.. Be it child safety, whilst browsing the web, or the smartest way to get to Grandma those photos of her newest grandkid.  From the mundane, to the magical, I’ll do all I can to get stuck in some of the wonderful conversations that happen across the web, and relate to the family in any way, shape or form.  And if you think I’ve missed something particularly worthwhile, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, and drop me a gentle reminder, and I’ll be sure to write about it just as soon as I can.

Welcome to conversations about family in the modern society, and let’s together start re-defining the conversations around what constitutes a family, and discuss and debate all those wonderful different stages of life, in our ever so technologically advanced times.