For many years, people have had personal diaries that they used to reflect on events in their lives with. This was all fine and dandy, until personal computers, combined with Internet access, came along and unintentionally ruined the practice.

Instead of writing their feelings about certain things in a diary to themselves, the person can now put their feelings and opinions on the Internet for potentially everyone to see. There is a reason why most people would not put a diary on the Internet. For one thing, if you said something mean or hurtful about someone, it would make you look like quite the fool if they saw those statements. And some secrets are better left unknown, such as nuclear missile access codes.

It would be very irresponsible if our military members went to secret meetings, discussed classified information, and then wrote about it online. ("I talked to the president today. He is soooo cute, but he wants to change the nuclear codes from alpha-427 to omega-666."). This would be disastrous, as it would give our secrets to terrorists and an equally-dangerous group, angst-ridden teens.

The large majority of online journal users are angsty teens. By expressing their innermost thoughts to the public, it seems that they can gain some peace/understanding. But this is a blatant lie. The real agenda behind public exposure like this is to make a pathetic stab at fame, and to put their hypocritical feelings out for all to see.

Often, users of online journals will say things like, "I'm doing this journal for myself." or "I don't care what other people think about my journal."  Hypocrisy like that gives me a feeling that only hara-kiri can solve (for those of you not in-the-know, hara-kiri is the Japanese suicide ritual in which a Samurai cuts out his or her internal organs to avoid shame). If you didn't want other people to read your journals, THEN WHY WOULD YOU POST THEM ONLINE WHERE THEY CAN BE READ AND CRITICIZED!? Putting something where it can be viewed by the public and claim that it is only for you makes as much sense as an artist placing a sculpture in the middle of a city and then claiming it is only for them to look at. Pitching a hissy-fit when people leave insults on it is hypocritical as well. If you open it up to the public, it can be read and scorned by anyone who happens to find it and disagree with your views.

Online journals, besides being hypocritical, are also so ridiculously angst-ridden that it seems that all the Prozac in the world would do nothing to alleviate the problem. If these diaries were an accurate representation of the human race, aliens would see us as lovelorn, parent-hating, money-driven, depressed, sarcastic monsters that have poor body-images and an unusual taste for the emotional lyrics of whatever band appeared on "The O.C." the week before. Are people really so depressed that they absolutely have to share their depression with anyone online? I say we either ban the Internet (which would be a REAL reason for angst, as everyone knows that the Internet is great) or we as a society encourage people to write their feelings, however useless and insignificant, in PERSONAL diaries at home where they are the only ones who can access it (and, with a legitimate warrant, the police). As the old saying goes, sometimes it's best to keep your opinions to yourself.