It seems there was an article in the NY Times about the alleged decline of blogging. To be honest, I didn’t click through to the article. I don’t feel like I need to. I’ve been seeing articles declaring that blogging is out for several years. But here is what I find interesting:
They observe that there was a 2% drop in blogging last year for 18-33 year olds.
[...]
What they don’t say in that headline – and this is where the “amused or annoyed” comes in – is that blogs by 34-45 year olds increased by 6%, by 46-55, by 5%, and 65-73 year olds, 2%.
Anyone who looks at these numbers and concludes that blogging is in decline is obviously very bad at math. What these stats say to me is that blogging is actually healthier than ever and will continue to be around for a long time. Things that are popular with teens and twenty-somethings are often dropped when the next new thing comes along. That’s why those who are trying to sell new things (and the media that their advertising supports) like young people. When we older (over 35) people find something we like we tend to stick with it longer. We are open to new things but it’s a little harder to convince us to drop something that works for us and take up something new.
Anyway, was blogging ever really a youth fad? It first became popular right after 9/11 when a lot of people – mostly adults, including many respected professionals – started blogs to share news and opinions. Later special interest and “my-ordinary-life” blogs started becoming increasingly popular. Now, granted, I don’t pay much attention to what kids are into but I don’t remember a time when “everybody” had to have a blog, in the same way that now “everybody” is on Facebook, or whatever the the kids are into these days.
February 23rd, 2011 - 3:34 pm
It’s mainly wishful thinking on the part of the Times, since if blogging declines they won’t have those irritating conservative bloggers pointing out their myriad errors all the time…
February 23rd, 2011 - 5:12 pm
Yeah, but what middle-aged and old people do isn’t important. It’s what the Young™ trendsetters are doing that everyone has to focus on! Focus! With laser-like sights! So you can get their money.
Really, isn’t it time the young should go back to being “seen and not heard” so we don’t have to be told to care anymore about the latest fad? When I was a kid the big thing was mood rings and pukka shell necklaces but I don’t remember the Times doing any in-depth articles about it stating “all other jewelry is now over — the new thing is mood rings and pukka shell necklaces! Throw out your old-fashioned gold and diamonds!”
February 24th, 2011 - 9:40 am
Now that I think of it, in the “early” days of blogging (it seems weird to say that), a lot of the “youth” had LiveJournal pages or similar…which in some ways could be seen as kind of a proto-Facebook, a lot of times the posts tended to be shorter than a typical blogpost written by a blogger whose blog had a “theme” other than “connecting with my friends online.”
I wonder if some of that “decline” is people leaving sites like LiveJournal (which I think is considered a blogging site) for places like Facebook.
(And I have now used up my quota of “scare quotes” for the week).
I will say a lot of the knitting or craft blogs I used to read have gone away. In some cases that was because the person “grew up,” got married, took on a more involved career, and/ or had children and decided they no longer had time to blog. But in some cases I think the person just got bored with it. There was kind of a craftblogging “fad” around 2002 to 2004 or so but a lot of those have gone away. In some cases the people moved to places like Craftster or Ravelry, in other cases they just seemed to have stopped sharing online.
February 26th, 2011 - 4:10 pm
I’m sure there are bloggers leaving, and I’m equally sure that a lot of people who might once have started a blog are, instead, incessantly tweeting.
Do I care? Not much. I think blogs are for people who like to read and write, who enjoy discourse, and tweets are for people who have tiny attention spans.
Do I care if “OMG!!!! Justin Bieber’s had his hair cut!!!”.
Look on twitter and facebook as a filter which removes people whose blogs you wouldn’t want to read anyway.
February 27th, 2011 - 11:33 am
– “Look on twitter and facebook as a filter which removes people whose blogs you wouldn’t want to read anyway. —
Excellent. Who would have thought? Facebook actually is good for something.
Just joking, actually. I do know one or two people who are into Facebook, whose blogs I would read if they had blogs.
March 2nd, 2011 - 12:07 am
I lost a LOT of my blogkids (people I encouraged to start blogging) to Facebook, but the ones who were actually good at long-form writing are still there.
So yeah, I agree – Facebook is generally a filter for ungood writers.