Thursday, September 01, 2005

why blog?

Why blog? I’m trying to think of different motivations people might have for blogging. But ultimately it all seems to come down to the same thing. People want to speak. People want to tell other people about what they’ve been doing and thinking about. (This kind of carries on from some thoughts posted by Miz)

I think free speech is good. For this reason blogging is good. I recognise that not everybody has the same amount of access to blogging and the internet. I don’t think this means I should stop blogging however. But what it does mean is that
1.) we might want to think about enabling more people to have access to the internet – if this is realistically possible. If not, why not?
2.) when we blog we must remember that we are just one voice amongst millions. Humility? Taking the lesser place at the table (see point 9 in Andrew Jones’ Spirituality of Blogging).

But the problem is, sometimes a lot of us (myself included) just blog crap. A lot of what we say is drivel that very few people actually care about. But does this matter?

There is always going to be a problem with sifting through loads and loads of information. I don’t know how search engines work, but I question whether they are always going to be ‘fair’, what if we miss out on a useful piece of info just because it does not have a high Google rating? On this point there are obvious (at least to me) links again to point 4 of Andrew Jones' Spirituality of Blogging – something about building up a good reputation. Again, is this ‘fair’? (Don’t worry, I am asking myself the question why I am concerned with things being fair or not.)

But on the issue of reams of drivel, I do think (at least for the moment) that it is important to blog holistically. If we are going to blog about our lives in any way, we must try and show a whole picture of our lives – not trying to hide bits away (point 3 of Spirituality of Blogging). Mustn’t we?

I have another question, which I’ll throw into the mix just because I can. Why do we think we have ‘the right’ to so much instantly accessible information???? People have survived for years without all this information, about what people all over the world think about all sorts of things. Is it actually going to make life any better for anyone? Is it going to give us more to worry about (how are my blog stats doing today?)

These are just some thoughts. Make of them what you will, if you read them at all…Comment if you so wish…I’d love to know what other people think, do other people ask themselves these questions? Where is blogging going?

Perhaps I'm taking this all to seriously and just need to stop thinking....

3 comments:

Phil said...

Since posting this collection of thoughts, I have continued to ponder the question of why I blog.

As my thoughts continued to mull and to marinate in my brain, I decided I would post my 'blog mission statement' in the previously vacant description slot near the top of the page.

Any thoughts.....

Sarah Brush said...

:oD Good. I like it.

Unknown said...

Hey Phil, great blog. I've been sneekily following it since the resource conference but since you revealed yourself on the home blog I thought I should do the same.

have you read Tim Bednar's article "we know more than our pastors"? TSK linked to it a while back. its got a lot of the same themes as you are pondering.

Maybe blogging won't make the world better, but it might make it more interesting and introduce us to a few new friends.

Perhaps we don't have a right to this kind of information, but it is there and it presents new opportunities to learn, listen and communicate, so maybe we should take hold of them.

Probably a lot of what we all blog is rubbish, but does that matter, isn't it the rubish that lets people get to know us as real people (is this what you mean by blogging holisticly?). Maybe its just important that we blog - it'll be dross lots of the time, but now and again something great.

I don't think blogging will make the world better, but it does present us with opportuinties to connect and share our stories. And thats exciting.

As for the more access thing - absolutely.