The rise of social networks has resulted in most people expending their thoughts in the form of instant reactions on social media networks. This, in my view, runs counter to the need of the hour. Presenting some thoughts, do let me know what you think. Better still, do a counter-blog, like the good old days.
Reactions prevent deeper thought
It is easy to think that thoughtlessness has pervaded the right wing. It is harder to take a look at ourselves. Instant reactions are more the norm than the exception. This is not very condusive to a thoughtful society that seeks deeper meaning. In the end, it serves the interests of those who seek to stupidify the country so that its actions are mostly predictable reactions that can be controlled by the triggers pushed at them.
The need of the hour is to slow down. To think things through, to ponder implications, justify our views, articulate our reasoning. To present our thoughts clearly so that others discovering them may learn something they haven’t thought of before. This isn’t easy to do in limited characters and with news torrenting at you. It takes going to a quiet, blank page to organize your thoughts and put out a coherent opinion. It improves our thinking, it improves the thinking of those reading.
Expending our emotions in ways that have no consequence
Articulating an instant reaction releases our intensity of feelings on the matter. Where perhaps, the impact of some event on us would make us take some action, offer an alternative perspective, seek and describe possibilities and solutions, the venting of our discontentment with a situation creates a psychological sense that we have dealt with it. It stops consuming our thoughts, provoking responses of more consequence.
Social Media is fleeting
Posts made on social media are gone from attention within a matter of days if not hours. There is no real way to go through someone’s thoughts from three years ago, even though individual posts may turn up in determined searches. All the intelligence and information is lost in some blackhole of inattention. In contrast, blog posts continue to be read for a long time – particularly the good ones, the ones worth reading. It is possible to like someone’s thoughts and read their entire works over the years like a book. Your voice doesn’t vanish into some blackhole, it keeps being heard.
Blogging can be citizen journalism of sorts
It may not replace news media, but in times when mass media is compromised and important events go by without due debate, bloggers can serve as a space for informed debate among citizens. They record contemporary sentiment, events, perspectives that mass media ignores.
Blogging serves YOUR economic purpose
Whether you choose to show ads and request for financial support, like I do, or whether you choose to make your content free, it serves YOU. The ads placed on your efforts bring you money, and your choice to NOT show ads on your content cannot be overruled. You own the content you create and you can choose how you allow it to be reused. No one can simply use it as they wish to profit from, because that is in the fine print of the terms and conditions you accepted. No one can shut your blog down because a few trolls decided that it would be fun to silence years and years worth opinions you expressed.
You can serve India by being a voice on record
Mass media is overflowing with unjustifiable opinions without consequence. Alternative news sites coming up have their hands full providing quality journalism. There is next to no media that can create conversational spaces that enrich the society and promote thoughts worth thinking on a casual, conversational, day to day basis. The need is real. If we don’t want the screaming hate to consume our public dialogue, we must be what we want to see.
Yes, and do leave comments with links to your own blogs – like the good old days. And I’ll come visiting, to learn more about you than a social media profile description can tell me 🙂
I’m planning to resume regular blogging.
You?
Great idea. I would say a group of bloggers get together, identify the topics methodically and do it. More like a table of contents of a book. Each blogger contributing to chapter(s).
That is impactful and long lasting vs wasting precious time on impulsive responses.
This is true. It’s also true that social media has overtaken blogging because of the ease of use, and the ready made audience. Also the death of services like Google Reader, which used to give us updates on which websites had new content.
Also sites like Facebook have reduced the value of our commenting systems. It’s much more friction free to add a comment to a social media post instead of going to the website, reading the article, then typing a comment and your credentials.
But like you said, it’s led to a loss of more thoughtful discussion. We used to have a pretty solid blogging community at one time!
What say? We bring it back?