“Intimacy of Blogs”
Michael Snider
What is it that makes people willing to share their lives with complete strangers, people they have never met face to face? Why are things normally kept in a diary displayed for the world to see?
If Michael Snider’s purpose in writing the essay was to make the audience question the motives of those who keep a journal for all to read, his essay accomplished that purpose. Even his title made me wonder. Intimacy, honestly, makes me think of a bedroom or a marriage, something sacred, closed-off, and highly-personal. When I think of blogs, I think of the internet, a huge data wasteland, cold and devoid of personal interactions. It was strange to think that the two can combine. I find it hard to believe that genuine relationships can be formed by staring at a screen miles apart. I wouldn’t be able to trust people because of the ability for that person to create an alternate persona. They can be whoever they want on the internet, and no one will ever know.
However, I guess I should get used to friendships being formed this way. People who have never spoke to each other are becoming Facebook friends. Couples are being created through Match.com. Apparently, online relationships can be meaningful.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I like this essay. I loved that he shared his experience as a blogger and blog follower. I agree with Megan that he made the reader question what motives a person has for blogging. I know that my blog history is generally to inform only my closest friends what has been happening in my life.
Facebook is my addiction because I like to see what is going on with friends of my from all over. I have friends as close as the next dorm and as far as my home or Florida. I met some of my best friends from IWU on Facebook before I transfered here. We talked online and then met in person and kept the relationship going.
As impersonal as it can be, blogs and Facebook keep me at least a little bit in touch with the friends I once saw often. we don't have the same relationship, but at least we have some form of a relationship.
I once knew a man who seriously was against everythign that had to do with technnology based completely on the assumption that it was ruiing relationships by taking away its authenticity. While I saw his point, I just could not see the logic in every relationship losing its meaning because friends use Facebook or email to keep in touch with each other.
When I read what Snider and any other person writes regarding this subject, I usually sigh really loud and long and skip to the ext article. My defense is that relationships are what poeple make them out to be. If you want them to be plastic and unreal, then they will be as such. But if true authenticity is your goal, you can make that happen using whatever methods you can find, including technology.
Post a Comment