Jonathan Rogers’s Blog

A lot of my friends make fun of my blog. They don’t understand it as a hobby. Or, even if they accept it as a hobby, they think of it as something really nerdy without much value.

I found an article that ran parallel to my understanding of why people do blogs.

Here is the argument as he states on his blog.

Back during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people had to leave their rural faming lives behind and move to cities as our economy shifting to manufacturing. People didn’t know quite how to deal with the complete lifestyle change of suddenly living in a dirty city with thousands of other people. So, people began to drink.

Society generally went through a drunken haze for a bit of time. Eventually, they learned how to deal with the shift. In fact, people began to embrace it (or they were young and didn’t know any differently) and see the potentials for good in it. They know how a wide network of people to work with and collaborate with. You could have things like public libraries, schools, etc. Being in a city was an asset.

Now, in more recent society, with standardized work life, we have more time for private social life. For a long time now, we have decided to use that free time for pure leisure. Television became hugely popular. We turn off, relax and become passive absorbers of information. It is the drunken haze of our times.

But, people are starting to wake up and realize that there are benefits to all this free time. We can be productive without it being work. We can contribute in a meaningful way (like the public libraries). That’s why people contribute to wikipedia without reward, that’s why people blog. We can add to the collective knowledge base, and have a great benefit and potential impact.