Blogging about blogging
Now a veteran blogger, I have some observations about blogging. Let's take my cousin's blog AtAHensPace. My wife enjoys reading it and knows what's going on in their lives such that she could walk up and talk to my cousin like they were close friends. There's just one little hitch...she probably hasn't talked to her in 3 years and other than a few passings thru in Chicago and a few family events in Ohio, has never really spent significant time with her. Now, in our modern world, that's not a revolutionary thought; I use email so frequently in communication that there are people I've barely spoken to that I feel like I know quite well. However, email is direct communication; you email me, I email you. Blogging is quite different. I post, you read, maybe a comment here and there. In the end, other than my hidden webcam that is watching you on every page, there's very little back and forth.
So that's what is so interesting...how it changes communication; many times it cuts back on emails and phone calls because a lot of information is communicated in the silly little posts. Furthermore, some people you don't know very well suddenly know a lot about you. Does it lead to deeper friendships, or different friendships? Or does it complement the existing friendships in ways not available before? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I guess time will tell. And why do I blog?....good topic for the next meeting with my shrink, Brainiac.
2 comments:
I got to tell you...I love "lurking" on the blogs of my friends. As you well know, even superheroes have dark sides and issues they struggle with and mine is lurkishness. I like being able to peek into the Greenhouse house and see what's going on. I enjoy the silly and the serious posts and and I think it adds a different dimension to friendships. I would hope that it wouldn't eliminate the need for face to face contact, but it certainly makes long distances easy to cover. My only issue with blogging is when people post VERY personal things they don't want comments on and then wonder why people comment! I have a friend in Seattle who insists on publishing the details of his budding romance and then gets bent when someone comments on it...sheesh, okay so maybe I shouldn't have said "run, fast, now" but he's been my friend for 20 years.
Nice to have you lurking Electra Woman. Check out http://www.creators.com/comics/bc/22479.html
I try to keep at it at the level where I'm willing to "go", if I took it to the diary level, don't think I'd post the URL :-) Read/comment away, you're not going offend me, though I'm sure I'll offend some along the way with some of my more serious posts.
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