Thursday, March 05, 2009

Cyber ADD - Has Microblogging Killed the Blog?



Facebook, Twitter... almost all of the people I've "met" online through blogging are now status-updating and twittering. 140 characters, a 2-second flash of what's happening in that moment. Instant blogging... just add words.

It's fun, I'm doing it too, but I'm also a little sad because this takes short attention spans to a whole new level. I used to blog pretty frequently, posting photos and writing little missives about everything from my crazy family to politics to pop culture. But little by little, I began to feel as though if I wrote more than a few paragraphs that even my loyal readers would read the first and last sentence and leave a comment.

For awhile, I thought I was being overly sensitive about this. But recently one of my favorite blog friends, Jamie of Kill the Goat wrote a post about infidelity. It was a plea for help about how and if to tell, about her inner struggle. If you actually read the whole thing, it was really an hilarious account of switching hairdressers. But a majority of the comments were about not telling her husband, or coming clean, or the evils of cheating on one's spouse.

If you're still with me, I'll keep going. In the first two years or so of blogging, I used to drive to work in the morning and think about things I wanted to write about. I'd keep little notes to myself when I thought of a good topic. I tried to make time every morning or late at night to write. I loved getting the instant feedback and the whole process in general. I felt as though I had my own newspaper column, but without the deadline.

I miss it. I've been extremely busy with work so I will admit that I've dropped the ball as well. But when I have thought about writing something, I often stop myself and just post the 140 word version on Twitter.

It's just not the same. :(

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