Friday, May 13, 2005

Human Oddities (and Mishaps): blogging is addictive

Amanda of Human Oddities (and Mishaps) has been thinking about the pitfalls of blogging. And the good things too. But she worries that blogging is taking too much time that ought to be used for other things. She notices that she's afraid to express opinions on certain things, fearing that her blog buddies may not agree with her, or that her family may read something too private:

...while I've been able to use my blog to vent and to express myself creatively, I've also censored myself much of the time. I've censored myself about politics, religion, music, pets. I've not blogged about some of the more emotionally turbulent moments in my life.

Now that I've been blogging a few months, I can see why some bloggers want to remain anonymous and don't tell their friends about their blog. I almost wish that I had a different blog for each friend of mine to read, because the types of things that I talk to R. about, I would never tell S. and so forth. I've had a certain post saved as a draft for a month now, and can't get it to a point where I would want my family to see it. (It involves religion.) Forget about blogging my private life. And I can't say much about my job (in a psych hospital) without the risk of getting fired for HIPAA violations.

That's why I think of my blog as more of a light diversion. And I link to all sorts of things which I find to be informative and entertaining, but mostly the latter.

1 comment:

MW said...

I think you are wise to have misgivings about blogging blindly and being sensitive to your audience. I decided to make my blog about something other than my personal life for that very reason, and sometimes wonder if things I review or talk about will have reprocussions down the road. I guess you just have to say what you're comfortable with, knowing that it's within a very public space.