Pressure to keep posting 'can be the death of bloggers'

[tehnathan]

Last updated at 23:00pm on 6th April 2008

They write about everything from a toddler's first steps to politics, from the credit crunch to Wayne and Colleen's wedding plans.

But the pressure of keeping up postings is leading experts to warn of "death by blogging".

It follows a New York Times story reporting the sudden deaths of two prolific bloggers.

Read more...

:/ That's...interesting to say none the less. But I do not see how people are pressured to post everything right away. But I do see how the stress can lead to injuries/death. Anyways thanks for the post!

-Dan

[Lexington]

A friend of mine is a writer, and I was discussing blogging with him.

I told him, "I'm on a few messageboards where members can keep a blog. And many members do. But it seems about 80-90% of posts are either just youtube clips ('this is so funny!') or song lyrics ('this song totally sums up how I feel'). Why is that?"

My friend summed it up pretty well, I think. "Blogging sort of the democratization of the written word. Until the Internet, people might have kept journals or something, but their work was never available for large groups to read. Blogging removes that obstacle. For the first time, ANYBODY can write something, and have it available to be read by almost anybody. And this got people excited. 'Yes!', they thought. 'Now my voice can be heard, too!'.

"And then they sat down to write...and realized they didn't have anything to say."

And I think he has a point. Not everybody's cut out to be a writer. And it's not the topic that matters. I've read some really dull blogs about really exciting things (travel to exotic places), and read some really interesting blogs about really dull things (laundry). Youtube seems to be the same sort thing - now everyone can be a movie director! And what makes up the bulk of clips? Things like people drunkenly singing and dancing around their room to "Piece of Me".

Lex

[Jeimuzu]

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[tehnathan]

No reason for bloggers to be less healthy than other professionals

[joeyconnick]

Yes, haven't read either article but overall, that just sounds... stupid. I mean, many people are in a variety of stressful situations... the notion that you could be pressured to blog to death just sounds like something to garner headlines, yet another "danger of the Internet" overblown by the media. I'm not saying some crazy people couldn't face that danger but that's because they're crazy, not because they're bloggers. By "crazy" I suppose more than anything I mean "terminally unable to set boundaries." And granted the Internet is pervasive (if you have a certainly level of income and live in a developed nation) and probably challenges all of us in terms of boundary-setting but I don't think it's unique in that respect. It's just the newest thing to come along.

Whenever I hear headlines like this, I imagine someone living somewhere far less affluent like--I don't know, Zimbabwe--being told about this and going, "Oh no, that's SO awful... you can be pressured to... blog to death? You should try struggling with starvation!"

I think Western/Northern culture is often just a little too inward/navel-focused.