Thursday 27 May 2010

Why I stopped blogging and why I am back

As you've probably noticed, I haven't written a decent blog entry in aaaaaages. There are three reasons for this:
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1. I came home.
Arriving back in New Zealand at the end of last year was fabulous, but apart from the odd "I can't believe I'm back" moment in the first week or so things started feeling very normal very quickly. This wasn't by any means a bad thing, and the three weeks between arriving in Auckland and starting work was the most relaxing time I have had since university. For the first time in years I started filling my time with many small pleasures, rather than big exciting pleasures of the type that make for better blog entries. For the first time in years, I honestly felt like I had nothing to blog about.
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2. The website counter of lying doom
Coincidentally, near the end of last year I signed up to a free website thing that was supposed to tell me how many hits this blog received. The first month's report came through and told me that the hits on this blog was a grand total of ... zero. A second month passed, and I was once again informed that not a single person had looked at this blog. I shrugged, and decided that if no-one was reading it, I might as well just write in my diary. It wasn't until someone mentioned to me that they had been on my blog during that time that I realised that the website was in fact the website counter of lying doom.
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3. Facebook
Is it just me or is Facebook killing the blog? I know that it is all in the nature of things - after all, e-mail killed the letter, blogs killed the e-mail (and least the bulk e-mail) and now Facebook is killing the blog. Now we shall have to wait and see if Twitter is going to be the death of Facebook, but I have my doubts as I don't know anyone that actually uses it. With Facebook being as popular as it is I started to use more of that instead. How else, after all, could I keep up with that person I hadn't seen since 5th form science class? I have recently decided that blogging is much better than Facebook though, a realisation that I came to when the person I hadn't seen since 5th form science class persisted with inane updates that made me realise how little I actually cared about them. And, how little they probably cared about me in return.
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Like many other Facebook "friends" from my past I only added them as a friend in the first place because I was curious about where they were now - a curiousity which was satisfied after having a quick look at their page when we first became friends. I feel weird about de-friending people as well after I did a "cull" a few months ago and two girls I de-friended asked me to be their friend again. That left me feeling pretty silly as I didn't have anything against them, I just wanted my Facebook friends to actually be people I am friends with. At least with blogs I'll only read the ones I am actually interested in, and assume that people who read mine are interested in what Tane and I are up to. And, I get to express myself in more than a line.
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So, with that momentous warble out of the way, I will leave you with the promise that I am going to keep blogging and hope that you can find time to check in every now and then :)

7 comments:

Rich Dougherty said...

Welcome back. :)

Maria said...

Definitely lying doom! I check your blog about once a week to see if there are any new posts, so YAY! :)

I think it's such a shame that Facebook (and even more Twitter! I really don't *get* Twitter) are the death of blogs. I much prefer blogs to either, and have discovered I'm less likely to keep up with people who're only on Facebook. Of course it doesn't help that my Facebook feed is stupid and will only allow me to see updates from 200 people, and I don't get to chose for myself who those 200 people are :-/

Anoop said...

ummm... you certainly don't know me, but I've been following your blog for over a year now, having randomly landed upon it when I was googling something about Taj Mahal.
I hope you continue posting and evil facebook doesn't stop your posts :).

Tane said...

Thanks people! And welcome aboard, Anoop

Dusta said...

Tane may remember me as Liz's daughter from the Waikato library, but you are forgiven if you don't. This blog made me go visit Goreme and Halong Bay amongst other places, and start my own travel blog for the folks. Definitely don't stop! Cheers

Tane said...

I surely do remember you Ruth, delighted that you're reading the blog. Please send us a link to yours.

Dusta said...

haha, actually this is Karen. Very close though! My blog is at www.karenanddaniel.blogspot.com