"Technology just enables us to overshare on a different scale."

I previously mentioned how I'm sometimes conflicted about how much I'm comfortable revealing in my blog, knowing that, while some of my readers are anonymous and faceless, some of them are people I encounter in my everyday life.

On Sunday, The New York Times Magazine published an article by former Gawker blogger Emily Gould about how her very private thoughts became part of her very public persona. Emily's story is extremely well written, thought-provoking and heartbreaking, and I think that in today's Web 2.0 world, where everyone is online somewhere, be it MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, or (like me) all of the above, it's especially relevant.

An "over-sharer" by her own admission, Gould writes:

"I understand that by writing here about how I revealed my intimate life online, I’ve now revealed even more about what happened during the period when I was most exposed. Well, I’m an oversharer — it’s not like I’m entirely reformed. But lately, online, I’ve found myself doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself. This doesn’t make me feel stifled so much as it makes me feel protected, as if my thoughts might actually be worth honing rather than spewing. ... I still think about closing the door to my online life and locking them out, but then I think of everything else I’d be locking out, and I leave it open."

It's an interesting conundrum, isn't it? The world communicates online, and that communication now includes much more than sending semi-private emails amongst friends. But potential employers can browse your profiles, potential dates can read your past dating blunders and potential creepy stalkers can access your Flickr photos with a few clicks.

To this point, I've managed to keep my online profile public where it needs to be public (Facebook, Twitter for work) and semi-private where I want it to be private...I think (a la MySpace and this very blog). I'm still completely cautious when it comes to what I write about myself -- I mean, do people really care that I had an Il Fornaio salad for lunch yesterday that was "SOOOO good"? -- but I admire the people who don't feel like they have to filter themselves.

It's a delicate balance, and one that I'll continue to struggle with as more and more social networks keep popping up. For the fellow bloggers out there: How do you balance your public and private life via your blog/profile/etc.?