Not Quite a Journal

 On Thursday, in Professor Grobstein's section, we spent a nice amount of time discussing the difference between private journaling and the tendency of people to post their journals online - for example, we talked about the ways in which Facebook or Livejournal have come to function as online, public journals for many people. I've been thinking about it, though, and I disagree; we concluded that Facebook/Livejournal/etc. have essentially replaced the private, paper journal, but I'm not certain that these things are comparable at all. We had considered the changing boundary between that which is public and that which is private, but I think that the difference between Livejournal and a traditional journal is more significant than the public/private dichotomy. I think that these online "journals" are actually closer to letter-writing than true journaling: a journal is composed of a set of reflections, ideally without any pomp or attempt at polish in the prose, that one writes stream-of-consciousness style to better connect with and understand oneself. The public or private nature of the information is of less importance, I think, than is the method of exploring it and its intended audience. In contrast, writing on the internet is filled with posturing and done, oftentimes, for attention or sympathy - to me, this sounds more like writing a letter than writing in a diary.