Sam Quinn, Blog #9 part 2

I'm back! haha

Anyway, I think it is kind of hard to determine what constitutes public versus private in a community...I think it depends on the environment, how close everyone is with one another in the society they live in.

For example, I would definitely consider myself to be more comfortable sharing information I believe to be personal/private with my current housemates, than I would with our class. I love our class, but at the same time, the trust and reliability of my housemates has been tried and tested time and time again throughout our time living together, and their genuine and expressed concern and support for me makes me more willing to share with them. Our class environment on the other hand, while still far more open than any of my other classes, still hasn't broken past that barrier of tangible trust and dependance, and their is only so much Professor Aguas, Elliot, etc can do to facilitate that. At the end of the day, we are a close community, but since my personal life is not of much interest to everyone in the class, I am more reluctant to share it.

Transitioning into my comment on social media in the part 1 blog, I stand by my position of private/public being a grey topic. Sometimes I think people think I share a lot, b/c I am quite a talker...however, when it comes to matters that I consider personal and private (like family, friend's secrets, etc) I become pretty quiet. However, there are others who I know are willingto tweet/post/share all aspects of their lives, and in very public forums like social media sites...this worries me! Mainly because, I think people should have to earn your trust before you give them access to such tender topics?? But then again, sometimes you need support and can find it in communities you did not expect...


I think it is all a balancing act, which is why every person views what parts of their life ought to be private versus more public differently. Nevertheless, I am glad that our class has grown to familiarize ourselves enough with one another to feel ok to push boundaries and share, b/c in the end it really does make us closer! Thanks for helping me work on that!