It's a personal issue.

So I had a really good idea for a blog post this week. But like most things you think of right before you go to bed, I forgot it by the time I woke up the next morning. I’m telling you, the topic was actually insightful, deep, and worthy of debate. In attempting to resurrect the idea, I found myself procrastinating by surfing all my usual procrastination-worthy sites.  And the site I ended up at was none other than my own 15 year old sister’s Tumblr.

Ask any of my friends, I am super creepy. I won’t remember your name or half of your face, but if I drove to your house once, just once, in the most generic suburban development, at night, I will forever remember where you live. That kind of creepy. The creepiness I’m talking about today has been introduced by the internet. Because of our infinite newfound abilities given to us by the internet, the government, corporations, and individuals now have a whole new assortment of norms and protocol to establish. Thanks to my creeping, I have a decision to make as to what I’m going to do with the unanticipated information I have about my sister. Stay with me for a minute as I tell you, strangers of the internet/College Writing 108, a little bit of personal information about myself and my family. As is to be expected, my sister and I are very different. Not to say either of us is unintelligent or socially-stunted, but to put it simply, I am more book smart and she is more socially inclined. That is, my sister is the life of the party, except in her own home, where upon arrival, she immediately goes upstairs and shuts her door.

Getting to the relevant part of this post, my sister posts many things to her Tumblr, an average of 5 posts a day I would say. But the content of these posts are what worries me and leaves me with a moral decision. Her website feels like a diary; the day I first happened upon it, I immediately felt guilty, as though I had maliciously snuck into her room and broken the lock on a fuzzy pink notebook. But obviously, that is nowhere near what Tumblr is. It brings in the notion of “privately public” and “publicly private”. I never kept much of a journal myself when I was her age, but even just four years later, it seems the things she posts about are far more weighty and emotionally scarring than what I ever experienced when I was 15. If what she posts is true, my sister has far more going on in her life than she has ever let on to me or my parents. The moral conflict is in what I do with the information I am given. Is this all true? Does she need help or is she merely being a hormonal teenager? Do I tell my parents? If I do, what do I tell them? Is this a good outlet for her and if I let on that I know about it, will she stop posting? I am comforted by and proud of some of the maturity she displays in some of her posts and thus far, I have chalked most of the dramatics to teenage angst. I occasionally have a good laugh about it.

What do we do with all of this new information? The CIA and the FBI get hundreds of calls each day about suspected terrorist attacks or UFO sightings. How do they know which ones to take seriously and which to disregard and choose with 100% certainty? I’m not concerned about my little sister, but it is true that the media has published dozens of stories about kids who posted their troubles on the internet, were not taken seriously, and ended up hurting themselves or committing suicide. The internet provides an anonymous forum and eliminates crucial tools of communication like body language and voice tone. It’s an old question, but one that is relevant to everyone, online and offline: who do we believe and why do we believe them? The internet exponentially increases the doubt.