This is a thoughtful post about Erving Goffman’s idea of social presentation. The idea of the public ‘front stage’ and the private ‘back stage’. There is a lot of room for debate on this issue and social media. What is private and what is personal in the internet age. Furthermore as our lives are increasingly mediated by technology it also raises the issue of how one can have relationships with people via technology. Being intimate often means sharing private information, ‘back stage’ stuff. But who wants to share that stuff when it means being intimate with strangers and potentially employers and courtrooms?

Think about some of the ways we interact with others today electronically: texting , emailing, Facebooking and Tweeting may seem like private ways of interacting. We might reveal “back stage” kinds of information using these new modes of communication, including personal details we wouldn’t want everyone to know.