To Kansas, wherever we may find it.
If you have access to the internet, and if you’re on this site, you must, then perhaps you have noticed the rash of online journals popping up all over the World Wide Web. These are web logs, or blogs.
And this is one of them.
My particular blog is on http://www.livejournal.com. Livejournal is a popular site for beginning bloggers because it is very user friendly. You don’t have to know codes or html to make a livejournal. In addition, live journal allows the bloggers to form communities of people with similar interests. For example, if I made my own jewelry, and wanted to exchange tips with other people who make their own jewelry, I could search http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=making+jewelery on live journal and find a community for people who like to do just that. http://www.livejournal.com/community/creativegirls/
This livejournal blog is for a class on… well… blogs. Their psychological significance. And while there were many interesting writing seminars available at Haverford, the class appealed to me because of one particular type of blog that seemed to appear most frequently in my web surfing.
Most blogs seem to be operated by adolescents and young adults. What interests me, what brought me to take a course on blogs and, subsequently make my own on livejournal, is the highly personal information that can be found on many of these journals. This is from a generation who, when their parents ask about school that day, routinely respond with nothing. Why do these same kids pour their hearts out on web sites that anyone can access?
Those who maintain blogs are fully conscious of the availability of their material. Often times they read many blogs themselves. And yet, I know many instances a bloggers who put up personal material about people who they knew could visit the blog. They then seem surprised and dismayed when feelings were hurt, and drama ensued. http://beta.ljdrama.org/weblog.php
And so I wonder why so many people seem so comfortable with this medium. Are they exhibitionists? Do they secretly want everyone to know their innermost thought? Do they feel important know that people can find and read the story of their life? Or is it catharsis? Is this a way of dealing with these particularly difficult emotional years? Does getting it down help it all makes sense? But in that case, why would one choose a blog and not an offline journal? Perhaps keeping a blog provides a sort of therapy that could not occur through a traditional journal. The idea that someone out there is listening to what you feel. Maybe blogging demonstrates a facet of psychoanalysis. Maybe pouring their life to an unseen audience helps bloggers to analyze their own thoughts and feelings, and look for links.
Of course there are many blogs on many different subjects, not all of which are so self reflective. For example, great deal are politically based. http://directory.etalkinghead.com/ But this does not interest me as much as the more personal blogs I previously mentioned. Perhaps because the political blogs make more sense to me, they could as easily be a series of columns in a newspaper. Other blogs are centered on research and many showcase poetry of creative writing. In such cases, blogs help showcase work that might not otherwise be seen. The communities that livejournal offers also give those blog authors the opportunity for suggestions and critiques from those who share their interest.
What I want to learn, I suppose, is the why of blogs. I want to know what they say about this culture, and my generation’s role in it. I think that blogs are very telling- I’m just not sure what they tell.
And this is one of them.
My particular blog is on http://www.livejournal.com. Livejournal is a popular site for beginning bloggers because it is very user friendly. You don’t have to know codes or html to make a livejournal. In addition, live journal allows the bloggers to form communities of people with similar interests. For example, if I made my own jewelry, and wanted to exchange tips with other people who make their own jewelry, I could search http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=making+jewelery on live journal and find a community for people who like to do just that. http://www.livejournal.com/community/creativegirls/
This livejournal blog is for a class on… well… blogs. Their psychological significance. And while there were many interesting writing seminars available at Haverford, the class appealed to me because of one particular type of blog that seemed to appear most frequently in my web surfing.
Most blogs seem to be operated by adolescents and young adults. What interests me, what brought me to take a course on blogs and, subsequently make my own on livejournal, is the highly personal information that can be found on many of these journals. This is from a generation who, when their parents ask about school that day, routinely respond with nothing. Why do these same kids pour their hearts out on web sites that anyone can access?
Those who maintain blogs are fully conscious of the availability of their material. Often times they read many blogs themselves. And yet, I know many instances a bloggers who put up personal material about people who they knew could visit the blog. They then seem surprised and dismayed when feelings were hurt, and drama ensued. http://beta.ljdrama.org/weblog.php
And so I wonder why so many people seem so comfortable with this medium. Are they exhibitionists? Do they secretly want everyone to know their innermost thought? Do they feel important know that people can find and read the story of their life? Or is it catharsis? Is this a way of dealing with these particularly difficult emotional years? Does getting it down help it all makes sense? But in that case, why would one choose a blog and not an offline journal? Perhaps keeping a blog provides a sort of therapy that could not occur through a traditional journal. The idea that someone out there is listening to what you feel. Maybe blogging demonstrates a facet of psychoanalysis. Maybe pouring their life to an unseen audience helps bloggers to analyze their own thoughts and feelings, and look for links.
Of course there are many blogs on many different subjects, not all of which are so self reflective. For example, great deal are politically based. http://directory.etalkinghead.com/ But this does not interest me as much as the more personal blogs I previously mentioned. Perhaps because the political blogs make more sense to me, they could as easily be a series of columns in a newspaper. Other blogs are centered on research and many showcase poetry of creative writing. In such cases, blogs help showcase work that might not otherwise be seen. The communities that livejournal offers also give those blog authors the opportunity for suggestions and critiques from those who share their interest.
What I want to learn, I suppose, is the why of blogs. I want to know what they say about this culture, and my generation’s role in it. I think that blogs are very telling- I’m just not sure what they tell.