Is Blogging Anti-Social?
Whitney Pastorek seems to believe that blogging is ruining her social universe little by little. In her recent Village Voice piece, she comments:
It takes a lot to make me rethink my place in this city, and even more to make me question my very existence. But lately, irrational social fears are keeping me up at night. Something is going horribly wrong, and I have finally traced the problem to its source: blogs.
[...]
I don't know all of this because I am a blogger. I know it because my friends are, and now everything is bad. And while a lot has been made of the cultural implications of the Blogosphere, I am not convinced that anyone has taken the time to talk openly and honestly about the effects it is having on the day-to-day existence of the world's adult non-bloggers, or what I like to call The Way Blogs Are Ruining My Life.
Whitney goes on to outline the various reasons, reproduced here:
- No one shows up for anything anymore.
- No one tells me anything anymore
- No one has fights anymore
- No one invites me to anything anymore.
- They have created a new world order.
- Did I mention that blogs are ruining my life?
For the most part, I find it quite funny that this rant made it into the Voice, but I guess I could expect no less. I don't disagree with her sentiments as there is definitely a culture to the blogging world, though I would not necessarily call it elitist or separatist. Robert comments:
The culture that is growing steadily apart from itself in reality through the blogosphere is the same culture that grew apart over the cell phone and the PDA. Before that, it was just email. Before that, I can't say exactly, I was too young to be paying attention. Though I imagine television might have had something to do with it.
The advances in technology and innovation that has sprung from using it are good things. People are bound to abuse it in ways that don't advance society. But there are people who will use it well. I don't claim to be one of them, but those that are will endure.
Source: Life of Robert, "The End of the World - You're Looking at it Right Now"
The one sentiment that rings most true to Whitney's complaints, however, is the continuity of consciousness a blogger seems to expect of his real-life friends. I have been blogging for about 3 months now and I often have discussions with my buddies, both on and offline, from the vantage point that they have already read what I have written. I'm not sure that's so different than before when I would e-mail things to others or IM them links and expect they have seen them as well -- but it is more apparent now as my mind has been focusing in on a series of topics. Of course, I don't really maintain a "personal" blog, so I am not sure the comparison is entirely the same. I keep all the stupid banter in a separate place :)
I guess I'll leave it with these wise words:
In other words, if a weblog can really kill off "real world" interactions with your "friends" maybe it's time to think if those "friendships" are anything but meaningless chatter about the weather, haircuts, and pretending to be nice to each other.
Weblogs have made you realize that your life is a sequence of interactions that can be replaced by a few hyperlinks and 500-word entries?
Then maybe it means that to be so easily replaced those interactions were actually just superficial drivel. Deal with it. Or not.
But shooting the messenger isn't going to do you any good.