Protecting a blog and tradeoffs of self-disclosure

I started writing this “blog” as a way to record my experiences during my PhD, perhaps in case one day, if I want to write my own PhD Grind, I’ll already have some material to refer back to. Now, why don’t I just do this via a personal diary/journal? I’m not sure. I’ve never been really good at keeping a journal. I have one “diary” that I’ve kept since fourth or fifth grade, and let’s just say…there are still empty pages in it. The entries have gone from daily to weekly to…annually lol.

What makes a blog more appealing to me than a diary–its potential to have an audience greater than one and to have an impact on someone beyond myself. This past year, I have found great comfort in reading about the experiences of previous PhD students who are now professors and/or senior academics. So if I can contribute to that pool of material that provides comfort to a struggling student, even if it’s just one, I am happy to do that. Also, I don’t mind sharing my thoughts and stories to people who would like to read them.

Now, given my recent research interests (keywords: self-disclosure, context collapse, networked privacy), I should be cautious about maintaining a publicly accessible blog that could be seen by an inappropriate, unforeseen audience. I am aware that someone for whom this blog was not intended—such as the department head, a future employer, or my high school archenemy—could potentially read it. So my strategy for avoiding repercussions is twofold: (1) minimizing blog accessibility/exposure and (2) curbing my level of self-disclosure in posts.

This website is maintained on a public domain, so it is technically accessible to everyone, everywhere, all at once. But I have purposely chosen to maintain it on my personal website rather than a blogging platform to minimize its exposure to a broader audience. Also, rather than have “blog” as a tab on my website’s main menu, it’s nested within a dropdown menu of “more”. So to find this blog, you would have to be really, really interested in me and my scattered thoughts. So much to the point that you have creeped into the crevices of my personal website. This is my way of filtering out an irrelevant, uninterested audience. There is one loophole–sometimes I might link a blog post in my Facebook or Instagram to promote its visibility among my personal social network, in which case, that particular post could receive a click by someone of only mild interest. I don’t do this for all of my posts, only those include writing that I think my followers (who are mainly friends and family) would find worth reading (i.e. life updates, recaps).

But, of course, this is the internet, so I should anticipate the possibility of my blog being read by the wrong audience. I have a maximum level of self-disclosure that I am comfortable with exhibiting in my writing. While I am displaying vulnerability when I disclose emotions (both negative and positive) that I experience, I am mindful to not overshare personal details about my life. There is definitely a tradeoff between reaping benefits of self-disclosure and mitigating privacy risks.

Am I overthinking this? Maybe. A few months ago, a passionate post-doc whom I met at a conference said to me: “research is me-search”. I am intensely me-searching. But I guess that’s what makes my work fun.