In 2002 Heather Armstrong a young web worker in Los Angeles had a blog called Dooce Occasionally she wrote about her job at a software company One day an anonymous colleague sent the address of Armstrongs blog to every vice president at her company  including some whom shed mocked  and that was the end of her job Those who study the peculiar social patterns of the networked world have a term to describe what was at work here They call it the online distribution effect that feeling so many of us have that we can get away with saying things online that wed never dream of saying in person But our digital lives are interwoven with our real lives When we pretend otherwise we risk making terrible lifechanging mistakes 