Flickr

Flickr is one of those technologies that make me a little nervous and yet I also find amazing. I believe that we are all responsible for ourselves and should be self-censoring with the ability to make judgments about the information we choose to reveal to the world. We have developed into a society that displays both voyeuristic and exhibitionist tendencies. Our televisions are packed with reality shows and online YouTube's slogan is "Broadcast Yourself." Little kids and their grandparents have MySpace pages that are chock full of personal information. So it is no surprise that we might like to have a Flickr account and post for the world every photo we take when we also have blogs to record every thought we think. Our "personal" lives are not so personal once unleashed to the Web along with various bits of data that can be put together from our screennames, hobbies, zodiac signs, and even the tags of our pictures. In some ways, I think it's creepy how much information I could have about people because of their penchants for posting their lives online through blogs and related Flickr accounts. There's a difference between peeping in windows and walking naked down the street and expecting people not to look and we are witnessing more and more naked parades. I'm not saying that parades are bad, but we need to be careful...perhaps liberally apply sunscreen.

I enjoy seeing what libraries are doing with Flickr. It's a great tool to use for sharing ideas, success stories, happy occasions, etc. I did not open a Flickr account. I understand the concept and use but at this point, I prefer to use Google Picasa so that I can share photos easily, but control access.