How Blogging Improves Us
I was listening to the latest Akimbo podcast and Seth Godin said something very interesting about how his blog helps him. He talked about how it forces him to focus, and to think about what he wants to say, etc.
Having been a blogger for as long as I have, I paused to think about that. Mostly, I wondered if, after all these years, having my blogs was still helping me, let alone anyone who reads them.
Not to get too introspective, but I do think it helps me, though how it helps has changed as the blogs have changed. As I moved away from blogging whenever I had something to write in a long-from to using the blog to share information and resources with just short comments from me, it has changed. I still write, but I let myself off the hook for writing on a regular schedule. On the other hand, the more frequent posts where I’m sharing things forces me to stay on top of those topics. If I choose to get lazy and stop learning, I won’t have anything to share. I think having a blog apart from social media also forces me to be more thoughtful about what I share too.
Unlike too many people on Twitter or Facebook, having a blog, especially one with my real name on it, makes me think twice about what I’m sharing. I suspect it’s very easy to share something that seems like a good idea on social media knowing that there’s a good chance it will just be one of hundreds of things people scroll through, and you won’t be judged very harshly if it turns out to be misleading, or outright false. I think when you have a blog, a platform of your own, you look at that differently. You think more in terms of having an audience. It may not be a very large audience, but I don’t want to lose the trust of that audience by being irresponsible. I’m not trying to make money doing this, just interject some thoughtful ideas that might help you. If I’m not helping, then there’s kind of no point, so I need to share things that are. It’s that perspective that I get from blogging, stopping to read and think about what I’m reading, and whether it would be appropriate to share. [click_to_tweet tweet=”It’s that perspective that I get from blogging, stopping to read and think about what I’m reading, and whether it would be appropriate to share.” quote=”It’s that perspective that I get from blogging, stopping to read and think about what I’m reading, and whether it would be appropriate to share.”]
In short, it helps me be a better thinker.
I wish more people would start to see their social media connections as an audience and do the same. It would accomplish so much to quell the fake news narrative.
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