Long ago before the advent of social media sites like Orkut and Facebook, diarists and bloggers were a predominant feature in the world wide web. However, with the advent of the above-mentioned sites, coupled with the discovery (by the populace of course) of photo-blogging sites like Instagram and Pin Interest, blogging and journaling took a backseat. Nowadays, diarists are unheard of and a handful of bloggers remain (with the concept of blogging being dominated by corporations and websites who have their own blogs targeted towards their consumers).
I have observed that a lot of friends and acquaintances who write for Facebook and other similar sites get embroiled in controversies. Perhaps because they get a lot more readers than bloggers do. While the popularity is definitely a blessing for their writing prowess, the controversies are definitely not welcome. During the good old days of the written word, writers would often maintain a diary which was personal and would seldom be exposed to the public eye. Bloggers too had this privileged. Most bloggers would write and a select group of genuinely interested people would read their articles (they were not called posts those days). Social media writers often refer to their articles as “posts” and expect instant comments within minutes of uploading their articles online. Quite often these comments are not by genuine readers, but by those who may have a bone to pick with the writer. Very often these comments deal with matters that are not even remotely associated with the article concerned. They may entirely hinge upon an unrelated topic or a pet peeve of the reader. With the writer responding to such comments and in the process trying to defend himself, the importance of the exercise of journaling and organizing one’s thoughts is lost in the process. Hence, writing for social media websites or “posting” is definitely not as effective as writing a diary or a blog. The internal habit of writing for pure altruism and nothing more is somehow lost amidst all the chaos and the cacophony.
All said and done, the need of the hour has changed, times have changed, and the tradition of being a diarist has changed. With blogging and posting being swiftly eclipsed by vlogging and short reels (like those often seen on YouTube these days) the future of the written word is indeed in great dilemma.
So much for now. Till I scribble in the near future. Au revoir !
Morning.
I actually see social media – by which I would group Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X and Mastodon: i.e. sites that work better with briefer content – as a different animal altogether from blogs.
Of those sites I only use Facebook and that only for very specific purposes. First, to stay in touch with my friends and relatives who are scattered all over the world; second, to interact with any odd content that pops unexpectedly into my Feed from an unknown source that concerns something I care about (for instance political and environmental discussions, certain sports…); and third to publicise any new content I have added to my “This World, This Life” blog at http://travellin-bob2.blogspot.com in the (probably vain) hope of generating traffic to it. By definition, therefore, the posts are generally pretty short and targeted to a specific individual.
Blogging, on the other hand, I view as a creative activity, writing about things that I have done (a day trip to another city, for instance), or something I’ve seen or read (a movie or book review for instance) that I have particularly enjoyed or hated; or some current affairs that have deeply affected me in some way (the War in Ukraine, the increasingly erratic and unhinged Tory government in the UK, Trump in general…). These pieces by definition are much longer, more detailed, illustrated and hopefully of a more general interest. Ideally I hope they entertain whoever reads them and make them laugh or cry or lose their temper – in short: react..
Of the two activities, I firmly believe blogging is the more important (to me at least) and gives me the most pleasure. I could live quite happily without the rest!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the written word and sharing your blog link too. I will definitely visit your blog on Blogger very soon, though I have already been an avid reader of your blog on Vivaldi 🙂
Thank you! Hope you enjoy TWTL I also had another I did for about 10 years, in various guises, mainly travel pieces. Last name was The World According To Travellin’ Bob. That might be interesting too. URL is https://travellin-bob.blogspot.com It’s dormant – as in no entries for a couple of years – but it’s all there from 2010 on ;-))