Aaron D. Neufeld

Aaron D. Neufeld- BLOG #34- ‘Strangers Know Me Better Than My Friends”

With all this modern technology, new media, and the new public being the old private, I have found that some strangers know me even better than my friends know me! And the same goes for me. Without realizing it, I know intimate details about strangers’ lives.

I was just recently hanging out on a Saturday night with some friends when one of my friends spotted someone he knew. Our group walked over and waited for our friend to finish talking. After briefly catching up, our friend introduced the stranger by name. As soon as I heard the name, images of my facebook news feed flashed before my eyes. I had been seeing this person’s wall posts for months and I knew so much about them. I blurted out “Your favorite place to eat is Marinara’s, you are in 11th grade in this school, you hate harry potter and your little brother’s name is Douglas.” The kid looked at me completely stunned. Here was a total stranger whom I knew so much about.

I have friends I hang out with all the time who I know less about and it is all because so much information is made public on forums such as facebook. It is truly incredible how much information is shared on the public forums these days. Is it a good or bad thing? Employers may know just as much about potential employees as I did about this stranger. You must be careful what you do and say online. But it also makes it easy to keep track of information because everything is written down and stays forever.