Diaries are So Ten Years Ago

Rochelle Juette
March 31, 2009
DTC 375
Dr. Farman
Essay 4
Word Count: 830

Diaries are So Ten Years Ago

Over the years digital technology has seemed to take over the world. People are no longer writing their thoughts down on paper, they are now transcribing them into digital forms on their computers, Black Berry’s, cell phones, digital planners, etc. When I was a little girl I always kept a diary. I wrote in it every night. My greatest fear, however, was that someone would find it and read it (which of course I later found out my mom read it religiously). With today’s technology, blogging has given people the opportunity to write their thoughts online which can then be seen by their eyes only or to the public if they wish. Blogging has many advantages and disadvantages for personal use, businesses and education.

People look at blogging as a way to track their feelings. A great advantage to blogging is people no longer have to worry about other people reading through their diaries or journals. The technology we have today has allowed us to protect our work and set passwords to where only we can see our writings. When I asked my friend how she felt about blogging she said, “I feel they are a necessary escape to those who like to express their feelings, through writing, to the rest of the world. I personally have written over 60 blogs both private and public.” The privacy option on blogs is great for those who want to stay private. For those who want to be heard, there are many disadvantages that follow. Some people use blogs to talk about anything and everything. In this case, they can end up giving too much personal information which can then only lead to bad things such as stalkers, predators, getting fired from their jobs, conflict with others, and so on. The one thing about blogs that bloggers have to consider is that if the blog is public, ANYONE can read it.

Businesses often use blogging for marketing their company as well as intercommunication between employees. It’s a great way to spread information fast to customers and employees. The information can be updated as often as deemed necessary but this could also be the down fall of a blog in a business. Gerry McGovern stated, “Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time. As a result, many blogs are not updated, thus damaging rather than enhancing the reputation of the organization.” There are many other disadvantages of blogging for a company. According to marketingtitain.com they said, “While writing in a blog that is business related, it can become all too easy to start writing in a conversational tone, or to express some personal feelings towards your company that might be misconstrued.” As long as you stick to the topic you were meant to blog about, blogging is a great tool for business. Blogging also has many advantages for a company. According to enterpriseblogs, “They boost your search engine rankings if you add fresh content on a regular basis. Google and other search engines rewards sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links.”

Blogging can also be used for educational purposes. In our case, our class used a blog to post our papers. This was very intimidating to me because that meant that everyone (and not just people in the class) could read my papers. In fact, my mom was trying to find my personal website and Googled my name and our class blog popped up, so of course she read it and yelled at me for not trying hard enough on one of my papers (this could be the disadvantage of educational blogging, nosey parents). Blogs can also be used as ways of discussion for a class. A teacher could assign a certain reading and then ask their students to blog about what they thought of the reading. In the article I found online it said a group of fifth and sixth grade students used the web to blog and post their homework. The students said, “Blogging is an opportunity to exchange our point of view with the rest of the world not just people in our immediate environment.”

People young and old are now blogging more than ever. Blogging is now being used for personal use, businesses, as well as for educational purposes. It won’t be long before the trees will be safe since we will no longer have to cut them down to make paper. It seems like people are moving more towards the digital forms of writing. It is way cheaper and also a lot less expensive. It is no wonder blogging has become so popular for many different purposes.





Works Cited

1. Unknown, "Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Blogging." Blogs. Marketing Titan.
< http://www.marketingtitan.com/advantages-disadvantages-blogging> 1 Apr 2009.

2. Unknown, "Corporate blogging advantages." Enterprise Blogs Info. Enterprise Blogs Info.
< http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/advantages> 1 Apr 2009.

3. McGovern, Gerry. "Blogs and Blogging: Advantages and Disadvantages." WebPro News. 23
Aug 2004. < http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/08/23/blogs-and-blogging-
advantages-and-disadvantages> 5 Apr 2009.

4. Downes, Stephen. "Educational Blogging." EDUCASE Review Vol. 39 Num. 5 (2004): 14-26.