After writing a blog the past few months I have found that it is pretty useful. Keeping a blog sounded pretty gay at first, but I started to get use to it. It made me look at video games in a whole new light. I found myself looking for new video games to right about, or sitting at my computer and trying to think of some older games that I have played that would be interesting to right about.
I definitely agree with Douglas Ruskoff when he wrote about how " the internet is not killing off conversation, but actively encouraging it." Social networking can be a useful tool to some people. some shy people could use Facebook, MySpace. or Blogger to open up to the world around them.
In some rare cases though, it could be destructive. I remember a few years ago, a few girls that went to my local high school got into some trouble over their Xanga page. They wrote some crazy stuff about how they wanted to kill some girl they didn't like and made threats over the internet and some of the other students pretty much snitched them out to the principle. Of course, his job was to confront the situation and when he did it all blew up. One of the girls parents decided to press charges and the girls that started the threats ended up doing some community service.The internet cant be all bad though, at least for me I used a few of my blog posts to take out some aggression I had toward some games i played.
Since a blog is just a online diary, they are easy to write. Some blogs are dedicated to a single topic like video games, or they could be dedicated to a certain sports team. Thats the best thing about blogs, it doesn't matter what you write about as long as you like writing about it. In some cases some people don't care if others read their blogs, they just do it for fun.
Rushkoff, Douglas, "the internet is not killing off conversation, but actively encouraging it" 116-119
I agree with you. In the beginning of class, i wasnt really looking forward to keeping a blog. Over time i realized it wasnt as bad as I thought it was going to be. I would much rather write a blog over my choice of topic than write an essay. I agree with your statement that blogs have made you look into your topic in a new light, because the blog has made me think deeper into my topic as well to help me throughout the class. Some weeks were slightly difficult compared to others when trying to reach the minimum number of words, but overall I enjoyed the class and updating the blogs.
ReplyDeleteThe lens you seem to be looking is intruiging to me. I can agree with the notion that in a way, weblogs are in a sense, online diaries. I don't think the story (although I know what your're talking about) is relevant here. I suppose I could fall into one of your catagories listed toward the end. If I were to keep a blog, it would be informative. Kinda like the team thing you refered to.
ReplyDeleteI fell as though I am the exact opposite. I was very excited to have a blog but now I like whats the point everything I had to say in my blog I could easly say to someone in person. Even though I did enjoy it more than writing an essay I interest in it started to slowly decrease. Yes blogs are not only helpful to the writer and the reader but who really cares, there are plenty of things I wondered about and it was ten times easier to goggle it rather than looking for an updated blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat seemed "gay" about blogging? What--and I ask this in consideration of the story you shared--was your previous conception of composing on the internet? Why?
ReplyDelete