Who the @^#& are YOU !?

Sooo...

1512 Boulevard Baby Designs, Cafe Press

I recently installed a stat counter on my blog to get a better understanding of my audience. Almost a thousand visits and very few comments are left on my page. I got a little weirded out by the idea that my thoughts are on display to...everyone and anyone...and not too many people are responding to my blog site directly. Although, I do appreciate the emails that I have received from those of you sharing your experiences with depression and anti-depressants. That was cool.

googlebot logo by Tyler Jordan, eVisibility

While my counter isn't specific enough to list names and addresses, I have a general idea of whether or not my blog is being read by human beings. I can assume that my readers from the Virgin Islands, Slovenia, Denmark, Brazil and the States are actual people based on certain statistics and clearly defined criteria.


However, what I found alarming was the googlebot, OneRiot and opensocial traffic spiders that crawl across my page daily, monitoring my usage and the usage of my audience. What it's doing, in fact, is indexing my entries and updating google's searchable database. It's automatic and invisible and really frightening as hell that technology like this is so intrusive and unseen. Documenting, documenting everything we do....


A big part of me wants to shut my blog down and disconnect from the world wide web. The concept of being constantly, automatically monitored by big brother or Robocop or whatever makes me feel, dare I say, a bit violated.


There is that small part of me that actually believes that my drivel is helping someone out there, so...I kind of feel responsible to continue saying whatever it is I have to say.

From 123greetings.com

Maintaining humanity at this point, in this era where love, relationships and friendships are wrapped in wires, is getting more and more surreal by the day. Can I really throw caution to the wind and naively step into this World Wide Webernet and attempt to display humanity even though this paranoia of a watchful eye constantly lingers overhead?


I don't know...