By Amanda Knox

In my columns I walk a fine line between the public and the personal. I seek to strike the right balance between exploring universal thoughts and grounding those thoughts in the real circumstances of my life that inspire them. That’s how my brain works. Context is the diving board from which I launch into analytical thought.

At least, that’s the goal. Sometimes I struggle to fully develop the thought. Writing is hard! Sometimes I struggle to convey the necessary circumstances of the context. For instance, it can be intimidating to address wrongful convictions issues because so much of the fundamental material of that experience, legal and personal, needs explicit explaining. Other times, like with an inside joke, the backstory leading up to a thought is convoluted with layers of history that my audience would have to be “in on” to appreciate. Usually, though, the problem of context is measuring the appropriate weight of personal exposure for public consumption.

As long as I can remember, I’ve kept a diary. My diary is not my column, or my Facebook feed, or my blog. My current diary is a series of nondescript notebooks that I carry everywhere with me and into which I dump my mental load whenever I get the chance. That mental load includes observations about unprocessed experiences, rehashings of recent interactions, venting of frustrations, copied down phrases, half-hearted musings and flaky philosophy, sometimes all rolled into one. To give you an example: “To say? To do? This has as much to do with taste as it does with talent. In the absence of God, Jack wants to play…”

What does that even mean!? I don’t know, and that’s the point. These accumulated fragments are not meant to represent the depth and range of my inner world, nor be interpreted as communications, even with myself. My diary is simply a tool, like a basin into which I can pour and store my scattered thoughts and observe them for myself under different lights. My column, then, is the exact opposite of my diary.

Tiptoeing so often along this fine line, I’m careful to provide the appropriate amount of context needed to communicate my thoughts. I cringe to witness others taking less care. Take Facebook. I’ve seen a woman post to announce her divorce because of her soon-to-be-ex’s porn addiction. I’ve seen a kid friend rant about being dumped via text while at the orthodontist. There are seemingly endless examples of emotionally-charged thought fragments, binge product and afterthought, meant for no one but posted to everyone, just flung out there.

I’m not the first to condemn the treating of Facebook and other social media as a diary. There are all sorts of memes on the subject, including, “Tell a therapist, not Facebook,” and, “Hi, just wanted to remind you that Facebook is not your diary. We don’t give a shit about your feelings. So STFU.” Longer informal discussions, like “Your Wall Is Not Your Diary,” complain that such behavior is an annoying and embarrassing cry for attention. The authors of these memes and discussions focus on the perspective of the unimpressed audience accosted by irrelevant, crass, and immature personal material from questionable sources that they, the audience, don’t choose to stop following for some reason.

I have a different perspective. Many people greedily consume irrelevant, crass, and immature personal material from questionable sources. That’s trolling and tabloid journalism, and there’s no telling when one’s fragmented, unprocessed and previously overlooked outbursts may be recycled into the fodder of scandal and public shame. Foxy Knoxy used to be just a soccer nickname.

But even more than that, I’m concerned about how ubiquitous transparency is becoming the new definition of honesty. I think a lot of people who treat Facebook like a diary don’t do so because they can’t control their impulse to outburst, but because they have been conditioned to believe that impulse is authenticity, that restraint is dishonest, like advertising is dishonest.

I don’t think that’s true. I think my inner world belongs to me and me alone, and I have the power to choose what, when, where, and how I want to share myself. Lately my world has been lit up by new work and new love, and for now, these parts of myself belong close to my heart.