Wednesday, February 23, 2011

None more blog


The New York Times solicits a number of viewpoints on the apparent decline of blogging among the young:
“If you’re looking for substantive conversation, you turn to blogs,” Ms. Camahort Page said. “You aren’t going to find it on Facebook, and you aren’t going to find it in 140 characters on Twitter.”
or conversely:
Kim Hou, a high school senior in San Francisco, said she quit blogging months ago, but acknowledged that she continued to post fashion photos on Tumblr. “It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said. “With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.”
Ah, that pesky “having to write” thing. There may be a useful analogy with cricket here. When the one-day form of the game began in the 1960s, traditionalists grumbled that it was a tawdry concession to the shrinking attention spans of the young, and that it would cause the end of the traditional first-class game (for which, read conventional news media).  Except that it didn’t really, although  Test cricket did feel the pressure for a while. Then, as if from nowhere, 20/20 cricket (Twitter, Tumblr, etc) arrived with its cheerleaders and fireworks, catering to even shorter attention spans, and suddenly it was one-day cricket that looked staid and tired, and pundits wonder whether the current World Cup might be the last. Ach, tell me I’m worrying about nothing. Blogging isn’t actually dying as such – it’s just that, in the words of cricket lover Ian Faith, its appeal is becoming more selective.

(Cartoon by gapingvoid)

6 comments:

Vicus Scurra said...

Pls to precis this.

Rol said...

I like thinking of myself as being amoung the selective few. Selective few whats is another question entirely...

Sam said...

It goes up and down, doesn't it - I liked it back in the mid-noughties when there was a more select crowd of writers about, after a boom there's probably a settling down happening and the cool kids will carry with their writing...

Tim F said...

Vicus: but wot duz 'precis' mean?

Rol: Exactly. You don't like to think of yourself as clever, until you realise what average really means.

The cool kids have always carried writing, Sam. It's the publishing that makes it different.

Z said...

If one wants to read blogs as well as write one, there's quite a time commitment. Using Twitter and Facebook may indicate a short attention span (and why is it always the young who are vilified?) but it could just mean that real life gets in the way. Or it could be that you run out of interesting things to say.

Anonymous said...

They could have something with the pay to stop idea... Seen it mentioned in connection with encouraging Hare Krishnas to move from outside one shop to a rival's outlet.
And I once paid a band to stop when I was working in Cuba. They seemed happy enough to ditch their hitherto firm work ethic.