Over these last couple of weeks on holiday in Thailand to see my family, I’ve naturally had a lot more spare time than I do back at home in normal life (it has felt great… and I want to change the way I manage my life in order to give myself more spare time when I’m back!).

I’ve spent alot of that spare time on the Internet… doing what I love: discovering and learning new things. Lots of the time has been spent on social networking sites. I’ve started tweeting multiple times per day rather than once every six months, I’ve uploaded photos to TwitPic, I’ve joined Dopplr, I’ve updated my profile on various other sites, and I’ve been using Facebook every spare moment of the day (and have already uploaded to it over 300 photos of the trip – with more to come).

Why? Well, obviously I enjoy it and right now I have the time to do it. I hope I can still continue some of it when I get back home.

But really, I’m thinking the underlying reason why I love social networking so much is because it allows me to be me, and to be unafraid of who I am, without the tense environment that I sometimes create for myself around people that I don’t know all too well (or if I’m having a particularly bad day, sometimes even people I do know!). It forces me to be honest about myself rather than wondering what someone will think of me if I act a particular way. It forces me to be the same person around everyone – and to not mold myself into being like each different group of people I might hang around. It forces me to operate my life – including outside of the online world – with more integrity of character.

And I think that’s why I love it so much.