Comments on: Is There Such a Thing as Virtual Personal Space

By: Audrey Chernoff

Audrey Chernoff — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:15:18 +0000

I was only called honey online once and for some reason, it made me smile. In person, it might not have.

By: Barbara Saunders

Barbara Saunders — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:40:10 +0000

How personal a person should get on social networking depends on what his or her goal is. A person seeking director-level position in corporate management probably shouldn’t be posting photos of the day’s latte. A life coach whose niche is people who want to quit their day jobs and move overseas might well post photos of lattes imbibed at cafes around the world.

I sometimes post trivia about movies I’m watching; I sometimes work (for pay) as a movie reviewer. To an observer, maybe my movie review posts seem trivial. It probably looked great to my employers, who wanted traffic to their site.

For me, one of the interesting things about social networking is that all of these kinds of conversations are going on in the same place at the same time.

By: Cath

Cath — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 07:35:01 +0000

I think that its the motive for networking that determines the terminology. Those who wish to exclusively social network are in danger of observing instant familiarity and their terms “sweetie”, “honey” could be genuine terms of fondness. I for one feel that irony can very easily be misinterpreted, I for one use it in bucketfuls…and that feelings could be equally compromised in reverse.
That all said, most who enter the virtual world, have their eyes wide open. If they exercise their own code of conduct and pick and choose according to this, virtual personal space should be assured.
That all said, I think that the power of the written word cannot be underestimated, lots more can be said to some apparent stranger than indeed a lifetime of verbal conversations to a loved one…

By: Donna Chmura

Donna Chmura — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:37:19 +0000

I suppose it’s a personal preference, but I really don’t feel closer to the people who post pictures of their daily lattes, tell me they are going to lunch or what they had for lunch. I’d much rather get to know people through thoughtful comments on current events, other people’s blogs, business strategies. Even more global conversations about weather, kids, spouses, dogs are more preferable to me than “just had a rare hamburger and sweet potato fries” posts.

And I’ve NEVER had anyone call me sweetie, honey, or babe in an email. Plenty in real life, and most of them don’t mean anything by it. Those that are trying to denigrate me will also underestimate me — to their peril.