I started this blog about three years ago as a study in new media before I came to the conclusion that we are in a post-literate stage. Digital literacy has been an interesting ride and media - new and old - is a personal passion, however, I wonder: are blogs relevant? Is it time to pull the plug on blogging? I think it might be.
Do moms twitter? Empty nest moms? My kids, now in their 20s (who don't Twitter) think it is not a relevant idea for me to be on facebook. Blogging is something I've studied since 2004, through moves from Atlanta to Manhattan and now to Santa Fe. Hanging onto and hanging out in new media arenas was a constant while my real life fluctuated.
Wired had an article, on blog relevance: "Twitter — which limits each text-only post to 140 characters — is to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004. Social multimedia sites like YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook have since made publishing pics and video as easy as typing text. Easier, if you consider the time most bloggers spend fretting over their words. The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter."
How to get into Twitter? I found this. But I think that twittering is irrelevant in many ways.
Media Theorist Marshal McLuhan predicted the death of books and libraries 30 years ago due to two factors - the new electronic world that brought mass media and the growing trend towards reduced literacy that went hand in hand with the electronic age. It didn't happen then but it is now. In our post-literate world, ideas are inaccessible and we need for constant stimulus. I think of the icons and image-heavy environment we live in. How will we share meaning, art, culture and the passion of living?
Figures on textual literacy are alarming. Twenty percent of Americans holding high school diplomas cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate and their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year and the textually literate choose to immerse in an image-based existence.
Anyway... not sure to love it or leave it... It is only a mutable icon of myself. Nicholas Carr wrote about the changed blogosphere and the angst among the blogging set as blogging has entered the mainstream and has become commercial. He highlights this: As blogs have become mainstream, they've lost much of their original personality. "Scroll down Technorati's list of the top 100 blogs and you'll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones...It's no surprise, then, that the vast majority of blogs have been abandoned. Technorati has identified 133 million blogs since it started indexing them in 2002. But at least 94 percent of them have gone dormant, the company reports in its most recent "state of the blogosphere" study. Only 7.4 million are still active."
I have real concerns about our changing digital selves, our literacy, our capacity to work with ideas deeply and the move away from our deep-rooted text-based culture.
I hope you keep blogging. I love reading your stories/articles. You were meant to write!
Posted by: Mary Swafford | December 15, 2008 at 08:21 AM
Your insights and perspectives open our eyes to things some of us (mainly me) never think about. Your motherhood moments transcend technology, they are moments moms can relate to, and we enjoy and need those times to share. I know it has to be time consuming but it is a welcome respite from traditional media and websites. Please don't scare us with talk about not blogging anymore!
Posted by: allison | December 15, 2008 at 08:59 AM
I agree... you were meant to write. I enjoy your thoughts-- it makes you not seem so far away. Your insights are unique and thought-provoking.
Posted by: Daugter #1 | December 17, 2008 at 10:51 AM
No! Don't stop! You need it...we need it. It is a way to reach out and make friends. It is way for you to reach all those of us who care about you and what you are thinking...all at one time! Life's too harried...we can't call everyone every day or write letters to everyone everyday. Blogs are subjective...they can be anything you want them to be...a travel diary, the story of a pregnancy and new baby, a dissemination of thoughts and ideas on topics political or personal, and on and on. For some it is intensely private and personal, like a journal. A way to get your thoughts and feelings out. Having said all that, yours is a good way to feel close to you as daughter #1 says. So...just do it!
Posted by: carron e. | December 17, 2008 at 11:12 AM
Great post! Thanks for walking us through some of the history and the trends. If you hang up your wonderful blogging, then will you at least do us all a favor? Will you let us know where you've gone and what you're doing in digital media?
Posted by: J. K. Gayle | December 17, 2008 at 02:01 PM
I think that parents of kids in their mid- to late- 20's are going to be the last group on Facebook. I've got several friends whose 20-something children tell them they don't need Facebook. I think it's because the kids consider it to be THEIR territory, and don't want it taken over by their parents. Unfortunately for them, that horse left the barn already. Of my 486 Facebook friends, only about a dozen are under the age of 30. The rest are adults whom I'm related to, live near, worked with or went to school with. It's a very vibrant and supportive "alternative universe" that enriches my life.
Posted by: Kathy H. | December 18, 2008 at 09:44 AM