Internet PDA, TechnaTMI?

Public displays of affection are typical on a college campus, and at parties among peers. However, if your boss, grandma, or professor was watching would we still be so openly affectionate? Typically the rules of PDA are generally defined; there are acceptable places to make out, and unacceptable ones. But now due to social networking cites the lines have been blurred.

Posting pictures of make out sessions and grinding on your significant other at a club is internet PDA. This is extremely common today, but is it ok? Is it okay to bombard the World Wide Web with images of your tongue down your girlfriend’s throat? This issue is heavily debated.

One school of thought says yes. If you are uploading your personal images to your personal page then you can do whatever you want. There is an option of deleting a friend if you don’t want to see what they are posting. The idea of this theory is “if you don’t like it, don’t look.” The converse opinion of this theory is that it is not possible to not look. Due to “news feeds” which record recent activity on the site, people are unwillingly exposed to these images.

The question comes down to whether or not a social network profile is private or public. Does your Myspace page fall in the same jurisdiction as a restaurant, or is it more akin to your best friend’s basement? What is the code of conduct for public displays of affection on an exclusively private Facebook page? How can we determine what type of behavior is unacceptable on your own page? It is like you’re in your room, with a peephole for 500 of your friends. It’s your room, but can you ever really act that way?