Thursday, March 22, 2007
A New Kind of Journal
Someone just asked me how blogging compares to journaling, and I got really smarty-pantsy about it for a while before thinking, This would be a good question for a blog. So let me put it to you, my few and far between readers: In what ways is blogging like journaling, and in what ways is it not? What would you be sacrificing by journaling online rather than privately, and what are the positive side-effects of such a practice?
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5 comments:
To journal in one's blog means that whatever you say there will probably come back to haunt you should you ever go into politics. Of course, a private journal could also come back to haunt you should it fall into the wrong hands, but at least you can be less guarded there... unless you have a nosy sibling / spouse / child / neighbor.
I believe in your case, Mr. Z, the biggest drawback to private journaling and not having a blog such as this, is not being able to accumulate and read people's witty comments about your comments - unless you like to pass your private journal around a parties.
I recently saw a picture of you in Chris Heuertz's facebook photo album. Chris and I went to college together. I could not have told you such things if this were your private journal. I would not be leaving comments in your journal...unless perhaps, as WEB suggested, you were passing your journal around at parties.
I keep both a journal and a blog. The blog is public. My journal is not (unless my roommates have been sneaking peeks when I'm not home). Someone in Rome has visited my blog. No one in Rome has touched my journal (unless one of my roommates took it with them on a secret trip to Rome when I was not home).
Most of the time the content of my blog is different from the content of my journal. I suppose all of that content does still record my life, my thoughts, just different aspects of it.
A blog is a space to express your personal thoughts, but there's no space between the mattress and box spring to hide in. On-line journaling is open to the public and there are plenty of thoughts I may not want to share with the public. But then again, God sees them, why not the public too?
I don't disagree with what's been said here, but I'd say that although blogging is technically a written medium, it is psychologically an oral medium. What I mean by that is that people blog with the mindset of talking, as opposed to the mindset of writing. There's accordingly a lot less economy in blogging (People like to "hear" the sound of their own words).
Where's the party where we're passing around DZ's journal??
I'm with everyone so far. For me, my blog is the place where I write mainly for myself the things that I don't mind other folks reading. My journal is the place where I put things for me that no one else has access to. Except Kami's roomies, taking it to Rome and such.
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