I have a confession to make…
I hate blogs.
Or if I’m being fair, I’ve never been
interested in blogging. Many times, I’ve created a Blogger or Wordpress account
with the hopes of falling in love with the art of sharing my deepest hopes, dreams,
passions and secrets with a likeminded collection of followers and many times I’ve
failed. I’ve got nothing against the format in general, and when I think about
it with a little more depth, I realise that I’m actually an avid reader of
other people’s blogs.
I guess my issue with blogging is in
similar nature to psychologist Sherry Turkle’s theory that as a generation,
we’re choosing to shy away from challenging ‘real life’ social encounters in
favour of hiding behind a screen. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but when I
think of bloggers, I imagine an isolated person hiding behind a laptop screen
in a bustling café – not engaging with anyone, not talking, not laughing –
solo.
I know that my generation is quickly
heading down the digital garden path, however I must admit that I’m slowly
trying to hold on to the past. I’d like to confess my deepest worries to a
friend in person than share them with a community of strangers on the Internet.
Don’t get me wrong, I can well and truly see the benefits of keeping a blog,
such as connecting with a large network of like-minded individuals, being a
go-to destination for niche industry knowledge, and marketing a business, but
my question and biggest fear is – where is will this obsession with constant
connectivity take us? Could Professors Donna Haraway and Ingrid Richardson be
right? Are we heading towards a future where we’ll be unable to distinguish the
difference between actual and virtual environments?
That said there is one overarching reason
that would prompt me to write a blog. For real this time, not just another
failed ‘passion project’. And that would be – business. For example, some of
the Top 5 most popular blogs are valued between $5million - $20million, and I
have no doubt these figures will continue to soar. It’s easy to see how blogs
can provide a simple, user friendly, and most importantly free platform for
individuals to communicate their business objectives to both mass and niche
audiences. While I can confidently conclude that you won’t see me starting up a
personal blog any time soon, if I were ever to start my own business, step
number one would be creating a blog.
Fantastic post Meg, i really enjoyed reading this, your use of embedded links to link your thoughts to outside sources is something i need to learn and incorporate into my posts, i thoroughly enjoyed reading your point of view in relation to blogging, look forward to reading more of your posts :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Michael - I'm heading over to your blog now to check it out too :)
DeleteI really enjoyed this. I think you have beautiful writing skills and I liked the simplicity of the layout, makes it so much easier to read and understand. I am a first time blogger and I think your blog is perfect.
ReplyDelete