It's been quite a while since I sat down to write a new blog post. I see hits on the site all the time, but I'm certain most people see that I haven't written in a while and are just giving up on trying to catch something new.
In truth, I am actually finding blogging a bit challenging. It's not that I don't like to write, just the opposite is true. The challenge is coming up with something to discuss every week that I am not already talking about on Foundations. Even though I have guests from time to time, essentially the program is an audio blog. I talk about what's on my heart.
I guess this comes up after watching an episode of House last night with my wife. The patient in the episode was an avid blogger who updated her blog constantly, often several times a day. Her blog was about her personal life. She omitted no detail for her readers. They knew every detail about her, her relationships, and interactions with other people. In the episode, she wrote about every aspect of her medical treatment and even put her options up for comment on her site before making a key medical decision. While I applaud a level of transparency, this passes well into emotional exhibitionism.
The episode got me thinking about not only this blog, but blogging in general. I read several regularly, but all the ones I read are topical in nature, even if revealing something about the author. Most are no more personal than a good sermon. However, there is an entirely different blogging culture out there, one that does exactly as the young woman from last night's episode did. There is a growing number of people who put even the smallest details of their life online for all to read and comment on. While this was the actual beginning of the blog, the numbers were very small in the beginning and were rapidly overtaken by topical blogs, especially entertainment and politics. Now, with the rapid growth of social media, our lives are more available to more people than ever before.
The thought train lead me to some interesting areas. How exposed is too exposed? What is the point at which it becomes unhealthy? Is keeping something back as private the same as lying in a blog? Please note that I am not being critical of people who do personal blogs. These are questions I feel need to be answered partially on an individual basis but also as a society as well.
Obviously, I do not do a personal blog. These posts are topical in nature although much of my thought process is revealed. I will never write here about any conflicts that Kim and I may have had or about or most recent date night. For me, that is still private information. I only occasionally post this kind of information of Facebook, not just because it is relatively private information, but I doubt most people would even care about it. I might put up something humorous, like when the boys had an egg fight in the kitchen while Kim was doing laundry, but that's about it. That is the line I have drawn for myself and my family. So, the obvious answer to the last question for me is no, it is not lying to hold back part of your personal life, whether it be on a blog or one of the social media sites.
I believe that it becomes unhealthy when the number of hits and the comments begin to become addictive. Just as in the recent episode of House, there are a number of people who blog and check multiple times through the day for the hit count and for comments on their posts. Their entire self worth is wrapped up in the opinions of strangers. The young woman in the episode was not going to make a decision about what type of heart valve, either synthetic or a pig's valve, until she put it up for comment on her blog. She became a vegetarian because of comments on her blog. How many people are out there who draw all of their sense of worth and value from the number of blog hits or friends on Facebook or MySpace?
I understand that to a degree. I periodically check the number of listeners a particular program receives through the course of the day. I have to admit, it took a serious intervention from the Lord to stop me from drawing my worth from the number of listeners I received a given day. I wasn't making life decisions on listenership, but I did decided what type of program to do based upon popularity of the topics. I still gauge the popularity of a given program, but instead of making decisions about topics, it helps me to write better titles and descriptions. It isn't personal when my ratings are up or down.
When it comes down to it, how personal a blog is really is a matter of personal choice. That said, whether a blog is personal or not, the line is crossed when the writer's self esteem is completely wrapped up in hits and comments. Instead, we all need to see ourselves as the Lord sees us, not as our vocal readers (or listeners, for that matter) tell us.
