Blogging Versus Microblogging
Over the course of the past month or so I have written more actual entries than I had since September of 2010. To an extent, I guess I’ve grown disenfranchised with Twitter and other similar microblogging services. I can recall sitting outside of classes back in 2005 and 2006 crafting random entries and feeling as if I contributed something to the virtual community, no matter how pointless it may have been. With Twitter, Foursquare, GetGlue, etc., the scope of originality is practically nonexistent.
Don’t get me wrong. I use each of these services to varying degrees, but there’s no creativity involved. You don’t even need a computer anymore to propagate your intellectual seed. Perhaps I’m just showing my age by harkening back to the days of yore when people blogged, when Facebook wasn’t universal, and when Twitter was just a gleam in Jack Dorsey’s eye. Perhaps it’s just indicative of man’s continuous search for the laziest means to an end. Why spend an hour writing a 1,500 word account of your day when you can spend forty-five seconds posting it to Twitter?
I was first introduced to the Internet on a friend’s computer in 1996. (We looked up Simpsons quotes as I recall.) In 1998 I had my first Email account. The following September I started high school and signed up for my first instant messaging client. In 2004 I signed up for Livejournal. In 2005 and 2006 I had Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, and Blogspot accounts, but by 2008 everything seemed to take a turn toward the microblog. We became increasingly impatient with the rate of information we received. We couldn’t wait five minutes to write two paragraphs. Instead we had to submit our wisdom to the universe in five seconds or less, or it just wasn’t worth doing.
Blogging may not be in vogue anytime soon, and indeed I believe microblogging is here to stay. I just hope that people take time every now and then to sit down and write. The trend of communicating in abbreviations and smiley faces can only go on for so long. Before we know it, Congress will be drafting the “I ♥ ☺” bill, and then where will we be?
Don’t get me wrong. I use each of these services to varying degrees, but there’s no creativity involved. You don’t even need a computer anymore to propagate your intellectual seed. Perhaps I’m just showing my age by harkening back to the days of yore when people blogged, when Facebook wasn’t universal, and when Twitter was just a gleam in Jack Dorsey’s eye. Perhaps it’s just indicative of man’s continuous search for the laziest means to an end. Why spend an hour writing a 1,500 word account of your day when you can spend forty-five seconds posting it to Twitter?
I was first introduced to the Internet on a friend’s computer in 1996. (We looked up Simpsons quotes as I recall.) In 1998 I had my first Email account. The following September I started high school and signed up for my first instant messaging client. In 2004 I signed up for Livejournal. In 2005 and 2006 I had Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, and Blogspot accounts, but by 2008 everything seemed to take a turn toward the microblog. We became increasingly impatient with the rate of information we received. We couldn’t wait five minutes to write two paragraphs. Instead we had to submit our wisdom to the universe in five seconds or less, or it just wasn’t worth doing.
Blogging may not be in vogue anytime soon, and indeed I believe microblogging is here to stay. I just hope that people take time every now and then to sit down and write. The trend of communicating in abbreviations and smiley faces can only go on for so long. Before we know it, Congress will be drafting the “I ♥ ☺” bill, and then where will we be?