May 23 2008
Blogging is Beneficial
I was reading the news while on my lunch hour at work a few weeks ago and came across this article. It discusses the therapeutic benefits of blogging. Since my very first post, I have felt a certain comfort in putting my thoughts online. If I’m looking for feedback, someone who doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall could well be able to offer a fresh perspective versus someone who does know me. Heck, just getting it out there helps. I have noticed that if I write something down in my journal, it helps but only to a point. I’ve long used journaling as a way to articulate my thoughts, to help turn them from abstract figments of thoughts into something more concrete so that I can continue on with whatever has been on my mine.
But blogging is different. It helps communicate those thoughts. Even though my audience is largely made up of people who don’t know me, whom I don’t communicate with except in blog comments, that anonymity is freeing. People read my blog because they’re interested. Because I’ve said something that they can relate to. I find that in real life, I am quieter and not as open with all my thoughts because I feel that most people don’t understand. Whether they say they do or not, it’s difficult for me to convey my feelings in spoken form and get the desired effect. I just don’t think on my feet like that. The method of communication that works best for me is writing, and when you’re face to face with someone, well, it’s hard.
Though blogging is thought of as a form of communication, some people don’t get that. I mean, I write down everything I’m thinking, and a blog post is 100% my thoughts. But the communication comes in comments. It comes in reading other people’s blogs. While others won’t put out posts meant to say something directly to me as a response to my posts, their thoughts will touch me and speak to my much in the same way that mine do for others.
It’s a great big wide interwebs out there. Those that don’t live an online life or who use the internet as an information resource with the occasional email to keep in touch don’t get the power of blogging. Not blogging for money or having a niche blog. Personal blogging. It’s fun, as a hobby should be. It’s absorbing, as a good television series ought to be. And it’s therapeutic, as journaling is. For those of us who blog, it’s as necessary as a nice long chat with a close friend is.
I completely agree!!!!! There’s just something about blogging that chills me out
Same here. We’re still really busy with wedding plans and pulling the house together, but FH is on a new WOW server and trying to level some characters again, so I might actually have a chance to blog regularly again.
I agree. Unfortunately I can’t always blog as openly as I want to but I can imagine how therapeudic it would be to be able to just let loose. It needs to be more anonymous for that, I think.
Katie, there are other options - a 2nd blog that can be more anonymous, or other blogging platforms that allow you to have tighter control over who reads what. But neither is as satisfactory as being able to just post everything in the same place.