Blogging IS Bad For Your Health
I dislike blogging. I do it, but I don’t particularly like it. It’s a necessary evil, part of the writer’s deal these days, blah blah blah. I dislike because of the anxiety it provokes. This chronic unease that I must. post. something. TODAY.
Turns out, according to a recent piece in the New York Times, that I’m not imagining my blogging-induced anxiety. Mind you, unlike the people mentioned in the article, I’m not trying to make the top ten on Technorati or earn money from blogging. Either goal would deposit me for all eternity in a pit of insanity and anxiety. I try to save my angst, anxiety, and neuroses for the books I write.
But still……………. I often wonder if, in, say, another ten years, people who are in their 20s and 30s now will experience an epiphany along the lines of: the incessant flash, scroll, glare, ding, ping, and hum of their email, cellphones, blackberries, and whatever else they’re chained to visually and aurally has permanently wired them for anxiety and they’ve lost the capacity for “calm.” Has left them, in short, about the same place as humans were 15,000 years ago when our species existed in a constant state of anxiety induced by the equally constant need to fight or flee.
Now THAT is a scary thought.
3 Responses to “Blogging IS Bad For Your Health”
Maureen, this is why right now we are still mulling how connected we want to be during our trip (which starts next month). The real answer – aside from being contactable for emergencies – might be “not at all.”But as lifelong gossips (er, journalists) there is this urge to tell people what we see. Blogs, and maybe even twitter (!), make it easier to feel connected.
Stan, resist the urge! Think of all the “extra” time you’ll have for vacating body and mind if you’re not also trying to stay connected.(Mind you, those of us who read you daily would miss your “presence” in our lives — but we’d get over it. Our hearts would grow that much fonder, eh?)
I saw this article too, but I don’t think it’s blogging per se that’s unhealthy… it’s more like anything in excess. These folks are plain old workaholics. Blogging just happens to be their chosen career.