Blogging Is An Addiction?

The New York Times ran a piece on Thursday called "For Some, the Blogging Never Stops".

The basic gist of the article is that blogging is an addiction and the people who do it are nuts. At least that's what I took from the piece.

It's not surprising that the New York Times would take this tack on blogging. I remember when the Internet was new on the scene back in the mid-90s and the New York Times was constantly talking about all the sex fiends trying to pick up kids on the Internet. The idea that there are new forms of media that they don't understand is inherently terrifying to the people who run the large newspapers. And so their coverage of new forms of media are inherently biased negatively.

That said, I agree that blogging is a bit of an addiction. But so is gambling, watching TV, being a sports fan, doing crossword puzzles, and lots of other things that people do every day. I am constantly balancing the needs of my family, work, health, and the other things that i do every day with my desire to blog at least daily. And it isn't easy. My wife gave me a great comic from The New Yorker that I think of every day. The husband is typing away on his computer. The wife is pointing a gun at him and says, "step away from the computer and have an intelligent conversation with me".

Bloggers aren't all nuts who blog incessantly all day long like the New York Times makes us out to be. But keeping some balance in our lives is also a good thing. As such, this will be my only post for Sunday of Memorial Day weekend!

Comments

[Cyrus J. Farivar]

Except that's not what the article is about. Blogging can be an addiction, as evidenced by the people cited in that piece. It doesn't have to be though, and I don't think that's what that article was insinuating.

[hugh macleod]

Funny, even "pro blogging" articles from big papers are often fairly clueless.

[gordon]

Blogging may be a compulsive behavior in many people but it is a hell of a lot more constructive than "traditional" substance-abuse habits.

It seems to me that blogging represents a sort of existential self-medication thru "open source therapy".

[Elke Marlene]

I just surfed in this great place. But it’s really a pleasure being here. Go on
with this good work.

[Lina Marie]

I love your site. It´s really a pleasure to read through all this interesting stuff and it home.

[Denny]

I’ve started to complie a list of the different “addictions” I have been reading about lately in some of the blogs. So far I have enountered the following dependencies: drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, oil (as in petroleum), gambling, food, love, video games, comment addiction (i.e., checking the comments on one’s blog), window shopping, tech addiction (addiction to technology), thrill seeking, yarn addiction (not a misprint!), and now, blog addiction.

The list just grows and expands almost daily. If you can limit your addictions to “blog addiction,” however, I don’t think you have much to worry about :-)

DenMan7
http://www.alcoholics-info.com

[Denny]

In my travels through cyberspace, I have noticed blog after blog discussing “Internet addiction” and “blog addiction.” Today, however, I read about a blog-related issue known as “blog depression.” Quite honestly, I thought that the feeling of “pressure” and “anxiety” I had been experiencing about keeping up with my three blogs was unique to me.

After thinking about things for a while, however, it has become apparent to me that many bloggers “out there” must be experiencing some of the same negative feelings about their blogs that eventually stopped me from keeping up with my posts.

What can a person do who experiences “blog depression”? Among other things, take a break and “go outside.” If you think that this is a rather simplistic suggestion, please continue reading.

I remember reading about a person who complained to his therapist about being depressed and “stuck in a rut” for many years. After listening to her patient ramble on for weeks about his drab and unexciting existence, it came time for the therapist to take a stand and advise her patient what to do. On the day of reckoning, the therapist calmly smiled at her patient and said: “you need to get some sleep and get out in the sun once in a while.” Upon hearing this, the patient understandably felt “cheated” with such a “simple solution.”

The point: sometimes we make things so complex that we become caught in a cycle of “paralysis by analysis.” In a different scenario, maybe the patient described above, after years of psychoanalysis, finally “understood” why he had been depressed and “stuck in a rut. And maybe based on this “insight” he started to live his life more honestly, more fully, and with more joy. On the other hand, this same patient might have viewed his world in an entirely different way with a good night’s sleep and by spending some quality time outside in the sun.

If you have to, take a break from your blog, “go outside,” and enjoy life.

I think we have to somehow learn how to balance our online lives with our lives outside of cyberspace. Sadly, many people engrossed with the Internet haven’t learned this and have, as a result, become so enamored with their online activities that their lives, especially their relationships, have become dysfunctional.

DenMan7
http://www.Alcohol-Recovery-Info.com