Why people age out of online blogging

[garote]

Two very important related factors:
The valuation of privacy, and the devaluation of history.

Example 1:

You're an adult with a career now. You mind your online presence much more closely. Also, it's much much harder to be anonymous on the internet, now that search engines can correlate almost everything you do and show those correlations to other people. Why risk it?

Example 2:

You've gone through a relationship transition. All the memories, even the positive ones, revolving around your old spouse and their family and your friends, are now a potential source of jealousy, negativity, or embarrassment.

Either way, the solution is to wipe old things out of public view, and thoroughly sanitize anything you place in public later.

Comments

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

ha-hah!

i've been here since 2006 and i might just well die here..

; )))

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

actually i think your examples are way of base, it's simple economics, twitter gets you more attention, Facebook gets you more transparency, the real reason is google redirecting hits to commercial venues. this buries the blogs in the .01 percentile. that and the disappearance of tens of thousands of blogs being censored off the seo. the devaluation is in currency. the inflation is in self-importance of smartphone zombies.

; )))

oh yes, and one of my blogging friends just up and died, but his blog still exists, so go figure..

[garote]

Well, we can both be right. :)

But what do you mean about Facebook getting more 'transparency'?

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

well, when you sign on they want your full i.d. and contact info, which they monitor very strictly, so as not to allow creeping or trolling, or hacking or i.d. theft, being that so many people have very personal information on FB, then they proceed to try to connect you with every tom dick and mary in your location, ie. do you know jane? click on jane if you know jane... so you have to be transparent with your activities or they simply block you from their service. the hypocrisy of that is that if you want to browse FB you need to register an id and log in. so, they know where you live and they know who you are all the time.

then there is the problem of content, you shouldn't post anything that you would not be willing to say in public, for chance of being criticized by your connections.

on an avatar service, there is a fantasy element where one could spell out all the details of one's existence, or selectively choose what to post and reinvent yourself. i guess you could consciously do that on FB as well, but it would require forethought.

in other words FB is where you want people to know you, while blogs can be once removed from reality, except for science business and political forums, which tend to become so factual and anal, nobody can take a joke and they take everything personally...

then there is the "like" or shut up factor, but that's a whole other story..

[juan-gandhi.livejournal.com]

Wiping is stupid, I think. Just change the access level. I think.

[garote]

Well, if you change it to the point that only you can access it, then you might as well wipe it. :D

So there must be some middle ground still, where there are people in your social life that you trust enough to write intimate things to them, otherwise what's the point?

But couldn't those intimate conversations just happen over email, or in person?

[juan-gandhi.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Imagine rereading your writings, like, 10 years from now. It's like talking to a long-forgotten relative.

OTOH, yes, you can create levels of access. I have about 4 in my lj. Some texts are for relatives, or for very close friends. Or, ok, just for myself.

[garote]

*nod* Makes sense. But that doesn't leave much for 'public' viewing.

That's the problem I'm having these days - there isn't a whole lot I can talk about "as it develops", i.e. before my opinions/emotions are settled about it and I can say what I really intend to say, or approve of saying.

It's the "as it develops" stuff that is often the most interesting for people to read, but it's also the most risky, or sometimes the most private.

I mean, god forbid some H.R. person would go browsing back through all this and find something that doesn't align with The Cultural Values Of The Company or something, and deny me a job...

[juan-gandhi.livejournal.com]

:) That's why I write my diary for friends-only.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

There was an idea in the late '90s that blogs were going to change the world. That full disclosure of everything would get rid of oppression. Lots of things.

Of course some of it is true, some blogs have made a huge difference in some fields. Previously oppressed people now can have a voice. Still, those who want to damage you or profit from you have way too much material they can work with.

[garote]

Right. So, in a way, this is a generational thing.

The people who are old enough to remember what the internet used to be like, are in danger of assuming it's still that way, and making some stupid privacy-destroying mistake.

The younger generation has no illusions about how vulnerable they are, and no weird ideals about how online existence "should" go, so they lock things down, and tolerate oceans of garbage.

[jayeeryk.livejournal.com]

Certainly as commented wherein more can be added as to reasons why, but I do think you're on point.

I just joined lj after a long hiatus (5 - 6 years) as I was a lifer Open Diary member.

I was feeling nostalgic, back on od, My best friend and I essentially wrote entries for one another. Very cryptic; to the layman, most responses in comments where of the 'wtf' variety. That ended up amusing us greatly and both our od's took off from a popularity standpoint.

Long story short, he left the site, and our friendship came to an unexpected end. Obviously at that point, my heart wasn't in it to be funny or weird anymore. Not long after, od was gone and the era had ended.

Now, with work and stress and health issues etc... I find myself longing for those days, and so I joined here looking to rekindle a little of that magic (if at all possible) simply to benefit my own mental state.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

In my case:

1. I just don't have the time. (By far the dominant effect.)

2. Network effects resulting from having fewer friends blogging, most likely because they also don't have the time.

3. Blogging anything technical is legally murky since my employer claims to own all of my ideas.

[garote]

Well, you can always blog about common technical problems... That's a nice resume padder...

Also, I hear you about not having the time. It's something I have to carve out time for myself. Hence, six months can pass without an entry... Then, bang bang, two entries a week as I finish up a bunch of little essays or side projects all at once...