"Blogging has withered as a pastime, with the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who identify themselves as active bloggers dropping by half between 2006 and 2009," report Tony Dokoupil and Angela Wu in a Newsweek story (August 16, 2010) titled, "Take This Blog and Shove it! When Utopian Ideals Crash into Human Nature—Sloth Triumphs." Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr are alive and well, the authors tell us, because they "offer clear benefits to users, including the ability to easily stay in touch with friends, indulge in a game of Mob Wars, share baby pictures, or watch videos of fashion models falling down, in exchange for their time and efforts." Twitter, meanwhile, with its 50 million tweets a day, seems possessed of many lurkers and is not, apparently, a place where many choose to stick around. "Between 60 and 70 percent of people who sign up for the 140-character platform quit within a month, according to a recent Nielsen report."
What people are seeking, apparently, is rewards—rewards for building content, rewards for leaving comments, rewards for checking in. It comes as no surprise, of course, and indeed I've noted, among my blogging friends, a true shift, over the past year, in terms of those who shiver on the doorstep of a blog, and those who come to stay.
Tenacious, stubborn, call me what you will—I'm still hanging out my blogging shingle. Blogging is no experiment to me, no call for attention, no wanting of rewards. It is a place where some of my thinking, my photographs, my living lives. It is a place where I've met you.
15 comments:
And we are thankful for that!
I guess us middle aged folks are taking over the blogging world. I made a Facebook account, and I just don't get it. Maybe it's all just a generational thing.
Glad you are here to stay. I prefer reading blogs to the sound bites of the social media sites.
I love that last statement.
I have to second you on not seeking rewards of any sort. My biggest problem with Facebook was Zinga.
And incidentally, I hang around on twitter so very much. It isn't time consuming.
Same boat here. Another writer / blogger, Leslie Pietryzk (Work-in-Progress) altered me to your post. I've been blogging since 2006 with "Madam Mayo" and I'll admit, there are sometimes days when I wonder why bother? (And shouldn't I be writing more articles for print instead?) But blogging is so versatile--- it's not only a place to post original content, but a kind of bulletin board. We can post a link to an new article, to a book, a video, whatever. A blog is so (potentially) versatile, after all. I am thankful to have the opportunity (the technology) to keep a blog. So... [insert play on quote of last line in Great Gatsby...]
I completely agree! Blogging for me is here to stay as well.
Let that shingle keep waving in the wind for all of us to come gather. I love finding blogs (like yours) that stir my thinking, make me smile, and keep me connected. Thank you Beth for being you!
I've definitely seen a drop in blogging activity as Twitter and Facebook have grown, but my own enthusiasm for it is undiminished. And if the kids are losing interest, there's more room for the rest of us (who may understand better than not all gratification is instant).
I'm glad you intend to stick around :-).
I've become aware of the trend toward social media in favor of blogging, but blogging is a totally different experience for me, and I'm certainly not about to give it up. It's a place to share ideas rather than sound bites, to communicate experiences in a meaningful way, to reach out to people we might not otherwise have met.
I'm so glad you're staying in the blogsphere with me :)
I'm so glad to have met you here; I can't imagine a world where you're not blogging. :)
I'm thinking of starting a blog this September.
I'm avoiding Facebook and Twitter as long as I can, hopefully forever.
I agree with all of the above and I'm glad you're here.
I'm sticking around too!
I am so fascinated by blogs and bloggers and the trust and interaction bloggers have with each other. Reading blogs gives me the courage...perhaps not courage but the capability to share a bit of me with others.
Exactly!!! I'm with you!
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