Under the digital mattress

One of the most interesting things to come out of the secret sites discussion is that people are keeping their private journals on the web instead of in a paper journal under their mattress or in a Word document on their computer. This sounds surprising, but there’s a couple of good reasons for it:

• The tools for writing, organizing, and searching an online journal written with Typepad or LiveJournal are superior to those for writing a paper journal or an electronic diary (in Word or text format) stored locally. Hyperlinks, entries organized by date, mood, category, if you’re used to using these things writing a public site, you might have trouble going back to just text in a Word document for your important innermost thoughts.
• Your diary may actually be more private and secure on the web. A password protected online journal is more difficult for a parent, significant other, or parole officer to stumble upon and read than a document sitting on a hard drive of a shared computer or hidden on the top shelf of a closet, especially if you’re careful with your cookies, browser history, choose a good password, and are more computer savvy than said parent/S.O./P.O.

I bet few would have predicted keeping personal diaries secret as a use of the public internet several years ago.

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