Why Did You Post That?

If you’ve had Internet access for any period during the last 15 years or so, you’ve made an active decision about sharing your life on the Internet. If you’re of my generation, you began making these decisions before your brain was fully developed!

The decisions we’ve made collectively on, with and because of the Internet have shaped the growth and dominance of online platforms in the media market. What do we choose to share and how? What do we keep private and what do we pretend is private? I’ve watched the doomsday documentaries, heard experts panic and critique and hope, but I’ve had surprisingly few conversations with the people who keep me online in the first place—my friends and family, or more ominously, the people I follow.

Most of these online social networks are designed to be “intuitive.” You’re given a few hints: nudges to follow certain accounts, notification signals to push you towards engagement, but your finger is the arbiter of your journey into the abyss. Whether you were ten or sixty-two on the day of your first post, you had to find your own set of rules for this new toy. I’m asking some indulgent friends to try to explain themselves. I want to disrupt the perception that any person can exist online candidly, to illuminate that our online presences can never be anything but curated and calculated, whether we’re aware of it or not.

TL; DR I’m making a podcast to trick my friends into explaining how we’re supposed to be using the internet. Get in touch if you want to be involved, watch this space for updates.