366 Days Later

I had intended to write this on the actual anniversary of this blog’s opening. Intended, failed, oh well. It’s a day late, live with it. For those that are curious, my original post is available here.

Over the past year, I have reflected quite a lot on the idea of blogging. I find it interesting that people have this urge to present the privacy of their lives out to the Internet population. For example, reading over this blog, one could learn quite a bit about me:
 Rush fan? Check.
 Hockey fan? Check.
 Two children? Check.
 Married? Check.
…And so on.

I think of this publishing of a life as a bit of a drug. You start with a blog, in which you control content due to the infrequency of time available to write long entries. It’s not all cherries and loving comments (haven’t gotten any). No, there is real work involved in writing one of these entries. I actually have to think about the structure, proper wording, and such.

Next down the path to Internet publishing addiction is the social networking sites such as Facebook. This is still connectionless communication, but there is a closer sense of authorship to readership. These sites flourish through the ability to comment on other people’s content. Content is usually very simple to create, and long entries are discouraged. Facebook “status Updates”, for example, generally are between 15 and 100 words.

Next down the path we come to the microblogging sites. These are sites like Twitter, on which it is expected that you will push pretty much constant “tweets” to a hoard of avidly waiting friends. Spending much time in this sort of environment will ultimately lead to either madness or complete Internet addiction.

Finally we have the actual chat sites. This can be as simple as virtual rooms of individuals typing to each other in real-time, or as advanced as multipoint video conferencing. However you do it, a constant diet of chat means that you really do have a problem, need to unplug, and possibly find a low-tech hobby. I recommend guitar.

I’ve happily walked down the path to phase two, and that’s plenty far enough for me. You can expect to keep getting these blog entries infrequently throughout the year, and I’ll keep posting Facebook status updates. Just don’t ask me to sign up for Twitter, or I’ll flash the sign of the evil eye at you.

One final note: I’m typing this in Word. Spell-check is giving me a Flesch-Kincaid rating of 6.1. After a day in which I spent no less than six hours writing at a Flesch-Kincaid of 13+ I must admit to feeling a bit refreshed.