Blogging Addiction
It's no secret that blogging is growing at a tremendous rate. According to Technorati 75,000 new blogs are registered and over 1,000,000 posts are put up daily.
James Wanless made an interesting point about certain bloggers becoming addicted to the hobby. James goes on to link the worse-off bloggers to those who spend countless hours searching the internet for more porn, or burning thousands and thousands of dollars gambling online. This brought up an interesting thought for me:
How deep into blogging am I?
James put bloggers into two generic categories:
Many bloggers simply use a free hosted blogging service, pick a pre-fab template and post their thoughts.Others, however, want to know their ranking, who’s linking to them, who’s commenting on their posts and what’s being said on the several hundred site and blog feeds they follow through their desktop, server-based or hosted feedreader.
Let me start off by saying I feel that neither group actually produces better material, and I read a lot from people of both categories.
I definitely fall into the latter group. I spend a couple of hours a day check my RSS feeds; trying to think of what to write about; checking my email for comment notifications; checking my stats at Sitemeter, Measure Map or Google Analytics; and, of course, reading other blogger's works and commenting. I constantly try and think of ways to improve the look and feel of my site. However, I don't feel that any of it is adversely affecting my "real" social life.
James says the following:
So, instead of looking at dirty pictures and low-res clips of porn movies, the new internet addict spends his time checking feeds, posting articles, posting comments, managing comment spam, checking stats, updating blogrolls and bookmarks, tweaking templates and developing new colour schemes to name a few. Other than the fact that blogging isn’t as damaging to society as porn, there may not be much difference to the effect on the end-user.
I really don't know of anyone that is that addicted to blogging. I view it as a hobby, and a semi-constructive way to spend some of my free time, but I do sort of agree that left to their own devices certain people could become harmlessly addicted to blogging and all that it entails.
Comments
Interesting post. Along with you, I doubt that I really fall into either catergory.
I think I "blog" more for personal enjoyment than anything else. I've always tried to keep diaries as a young teen and they never worked. This really seemed to be the only thing Ive stuck with.
Providing nothing happens with my server and its archives, I have an accurate day to day reference of where I was, who I was with and what I did.. blah blah blah. Its funny to look back and see what I was like not just a year or two ago, but even 3 months ago.
When other issues come up, its nice to get an outside point of view from readers via feedback/comments.
Where Im headed with this comment.. Im not sure.
I guess Im just trying to say "Blogging works for me."
:) Jess
Posted by Jess on May 29, 2006 at 3:20 PM
My blogging addiction comes and goes, as you may have noticed.
Posted by brea on May 29, 2006 at 3:38 PM
I purposely didn't put anything about myself in the original article (thanks for the trackback), but I try not to fall into the addict category.
I spent a fair bit of time 'noodling' with both platforms and UI design before I finally was happy.
Like Stephen I can spend a lot of time reading my feeds too, but have recently committed myself to only reading feeds every second day and only posting when something really catches my attention.
I don't fall too much into the Technorati/Alexa/TTLB type category and simply use AWStats for my traffic. My site is mostly to house a little info about my work and to do some writing, so being prolific and trafficked isn't my main objective.
Posted by James Wanless on May 29, 2006 at 3:48 PM
Technorati/TTLB ranking systems are useless. To be #1 you just have to join a crapload of blogrolls. I'm probably going to drop them soon as I highly prefer looking at actually statistic tracking like visitors and their whereabouts.
You don't necessarily have to be prolific to be heavily-trafficked, you just have to have good content. Something I really need to start working on.
Posted by Stephen Glauser on May 29, 2006 at 4:46 PM
I know what you mean about joining blogrolls to get up there. I may be a "Marauding Marsupial" but I have the traffic of most Lowly Insects.
Posted by saskboy on May 29, 2006 at 6:39 PM
steve, face it. You can be such a nerd sometimes.
Posted by n on May 31, 2006 at 6:35 PM
N, not only will I face the fact that I can be a nerd... I will readily admit that I am a nerd. However, I do play the role of well-adjusted normal person quite well.
Posted by Stephen Glauser on June 1, 2006 at 2:25 AM