This weeks article on Public Displays of Connection had an interesting anecdote about a professor who has a personal profile talking about her more "wild side". She's put in a tough position when a student wants to add her to his friend list. To refuse is rude; to accept is to let him in on an aspect of herself that she would prefer to leave out of classroom.
This really resonated with some of the reading I've been doing on Blogging (the subject of my final paper). Many research participants reported that they keep blogs that significant people in their lives do not know about so that they can express their views freely without worrying about hurting anyone's feelings. And yet, again and again, we talk about the web being an open "democratic" space, where anyone can look you up at any time. Some research participants talked about how potential employers sometimes get a hold of their blogs and form impressions about them outside of the information they provide through an interview or resume. Even if no one actively goes looking for dirt about you, we know that social connections on the Web spill over, and at some time or the other, someone's going to catch sight of this "other aspect" of your personality.
At a rational level, if we know that the Web is public, why do we keep trying to live out our private lives on it?
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