The New York Times published this "trendy" nonsense about blog deaths, amusingly followed up by Gawker's take on the matter. Here's a highlight: "In the last few months, two bloggers--ages 50 and 60--dropped dead of heart attacks. Times for a trend piece! "Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing...." As for me, not being paid a blog-gone cent and not writing for a news machine, I find blogging relaxing; it has actually resurrected me from the dead. What about you people?Monday, April 7, 2008
Is Blogging Killing You?
The New York Times published this "trendy" nonsense about blog deaths, amusingly followed up by Gawker's take on the matter. Here's a highlight: "In the last few months, two bloggers--ages 50 and 60--dropped dead of heart attacks. Times for a trend piece! "Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing...." As for me, not being paid a blog-gone cent and not writing for a news machine, I find blogging relaxing; it has actually resurrected me from the dead. What about you people?
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12 comments:
I love keeping my contributing to my various blogs. Gives me a place to post the stuff that pops into my head that, for whatever reason, I don't feel like trying to sell.
Only downside of blogging/stogging (stalking other people's blogs) is the time it sucks out of my regularly scheduled work day...
See, all good writing eventually finds it home.
Wow... "I love keeping my contributing to my..."
I swear, English really is my native tongue.
Me talk pretty one day.
It's okay, JS....we knew what you meant. (I like your blog, btw.)
actually, i think blogging keeps me healthy, focused, and in touch with the outside world.
in fact, i feel that blogging is probably beneficial to my health...wait, what's that pain...it feels like something is shooting down my arm...omigod, my heart...hot molten lava in my chest! ARRRRRRAGHHHHHH.......CALL AN AMBULANCE.......I'M DYING.........AHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!
First of all, the 50 and 60 year olds probably would have died sooner if they weren't blogging. Blogging kept them alive. As for the sleep disorders, exhaustion, weight loss or gain, the key word there is "complain." That's what blogging is all about, complaining. Just because bloggers complain more doesn't mean they actually suffer more from those conditions. Correlation is not causation. Nor is chronic complaining causation. It's simply "blog content."
I enjoy blogging, but that's probably because I don't pressure myself to stick to a schedule. I blog when I feel like it, no more and no less. And my fiction-writing comes first.
I think Gawker is overrated with its snarky overuse of curse words and cool attitude. I sort of liked the New York Times article; I appreciate that blogging could kill a person, as I have love/hate, life/death with blogging.
As an ex-journalist, I know what nonsense this all is. Cause and effect? Yeah, right. I love blogging, through blogging I have discovered that I actually have opinions on things, some quite strong ones. Expressing them, I believe, keeps me calmer than holding it all in... and then there's always the thrill of finding someone else who is feeling what I feel at that moment. Love that.
I've known of a couple of people who spent so much time at the computer they developed blood clots in their legs and died of pulmonary embolisms. But that's more of a sitting-on-yr-arse issue, rather than a blogging issue.
They might as well have said two red- headed people died aged 50 and 60 and then blamed it on the hair colour. It would be about as easy to prove. I agree with rmellis. Blog on people!
Blogging isn't killing me. It's the base mentality of today's yoof. Sculpted in part by the mean degenerates at places like Gawker.
(Since they run the outlets you hope to publish in, if you think differently than them or reject the mean, shallow Gawker pose completely, you're not very likely to get published at all.)
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