Janet Ruhl blogs about diabetes and maintains a website called “ How to get your blood sugar under control.” Thanks to Dave Lull, I came across her critique of Good Calories, Bad Calories (”some of the densest writing I’ve encountered in a long life of reading popular science . . . its core message is VERY important” — I agree with both) and noticed a comment by her that blogging turned out to be a good idea. Ah, blogging. She kindly agreed to answer a few questions.
Why did blogging turn out to be a good thing to do?
Blogging introduced me to a new group of younger people who have been a pleasure to interact with. I was accustomed to the more traditional web information exchange venues, having been active in online forums since I joined Compuserve in 1987. But many of the bloggers are younger and don’t appear to be familiar with the newsgroups or even the larger discussion forums dedicated to my topic. Once I started blogging and syndicating my blog [via RSS], these bloggers introduced themselves [by commenting on her blog]. I really like the positive supportive atmosphere that they bring to interaction.
What have you learned from blogging?
In the health community, at least, the younger people whose online communication is confined to blogging seem to be more positive and supportive and less likely to use internet communication to indulge the kinds of flaming and obsessional nuttiness that seems to have destroyed the newsgroups as a viable place for intelligent discourse. They also make very good use of multimedia when making their points.
You seem to be saying blogging brings out a better side of human nature.
Not really. It is just that the structure of blogging allows each person to be heard, and leaves it to the audience to vote with their attention for content. Stridency and conflict are minimized because comments are moderated. A person can, of course, contradict another person, in their own blog, but they have to attract readers and conflict alone is not a strong attraction.
Joyce Cohen on blogging. Anastasia Goodstein. Why I blog.