#940 E-Exhibitionism

I worry that many of us are starting to take this whole posting stuff online thing to dangerous levels. I mean, shouldn’t a diary be private?
Granted, the memory of one’s own computer may be compromised every time you go online. But that doesn’t mean you yourself should post your most intimate details on the internet.
Two websites I read about recently demonstrate my concern. The first one is mon.thly.info. It’s purportedly planned to help women keep track of their menstrual cycles. It’s designed to send out alerts, so you know when that time of the month is impending or to help if you plan to get pregnant.
You know, I’m no expert in Microsoft Works, but I’m pretty sure its basic calendar function is capable of sending you an alert every month or so. I mean, it manages Aunt Nessie’s birthday and my monthly bunco meeting so I’m thinking a little coded entry would suffice.
Why online? Is finding out from your iPhone that important? “What was that ploop noise?” “Oh, that was my ovulation ringtone.”
I’m sure its protected by a password and all, and it’s a fair bet hackers have better things to do than watch your menstrual show, but why bother?
It’s seems to be part of our larger tendency towards e-exhibitionism. This need to relentlessly post the minutiae of our empty lives. Connecting us, albeit anonymously, with the larger social organism of the World Wide Web.
The other website illustrates the point even further. It’s called bedposted.com. For those, “wanting to quantify their bedroom life.” They offer categorization tools so you can catalogue your amorous activities. Using Excel or Sexcel?
You can even create charts and tables about your favorite acts and partners. Or if you’re a furniture fetishist, a table of the tables you’ve celebrated, um, Thanksgiving on.
Putting aside for a moment the vast quantity of folks who would not have enough entries for a valid statistical sample, why? And why online?
But the larger question is, who would create websites like this? And what for? Is there a secret government organization tracking all the bodily functions?
I’ll have to Google regularity dot com and find out...
America, ya gotta love it.