My So-Called Blog
January 11th, 2004Blogs have been described as the new journalism. But increasingly, as the New York Times reports, blogs are the new group therapy. Many teenagers are turning to blogging to tell the world, or their friends or classmates, their angsts and feelings. And using services such as LiveJournal, kids from the same school can subscribe to each others’ blogs and form virtual communities outside the traditional hierarchies of high school.
It’s an interesting read, although it doesn’t come to any real conclusions. But it has interesting implications - will the generation brought up as teenage bloggers carry on being as candid in adult life? Will they remain as voyeuristic with regards to other people’s lives? What implications does mass blogging have on the boundary between private and public? Will it make us all mini-celebrities?