Accountability

April 21 2009, 9:55pm

Lifestreaming forces one to constantly monitor and review his actions. It also goes a step beyond journal-keeping by inviting the scrutiny (or encouragement) of the public. Combined, these factors create an environment conducive to personal growth and deliberate decision-making.

I used to be pretty into lying. You know–the calling in fake-sick to work type. Now that I am invested in lifestreaming (and after having been fired from a job for bragging about calling off in a blog), I find myself unable to weave complicated alibis. For example: if I don't feel like going to a party, I can claim some weak excuse which will interfere with my motives and processes for lifestreaming, or I can learn to say "no, I don't want to go".  I can also simply decide to just go, and gain an experience I wouldn't otherwise have had. These options force me to be accountable for my decisions and face very real consequences if I try to mask the truth.

Another example is documenting meals. Monitoring food intake, whether via calorie tracker such as fitday.com or in photos sent to flickr, makes the eater extremely conscious of food choices he might not otherwise have noticed. Lifestreaming begins to help us with pattern recognition we can't achieve on our own.