20130424

melog-20130424.log

is blogging dead? i've heard both a resounding YES and a resounding NO. but, i think we may need to dig deeper into a more important concern:

is social media and technology forcing us to only have time for tweet sized packets of information? and, what will the implications be if we develop into a society of people that cannot stay tuned for long enough to finish a few pages from a book-- or even take the time to methodically write one?

most people who say blogging is dead cite the reason as being the advent of social medial. it's faster (instant gratification) and as a result has become all the rave. they point out that the success of twitter and the captivating nature of facebook as the reason why blogging is obsolete and warn that if you want your business to have any useful presence online, you had better learn how to tweet and use facebook for your business.

on the other hand, people who still have confidence in blogging point out that social media isn't always powerful enough to provide a rich on-line experience. social media doesn't always go in-depth on important topics despite being a good springboard for grabbing people's attention. blogs are still enjoyed by many people and it's a good way to display really cool content as well as one's talents in ways that facebook and twitter cannot always do; unless however, they forward the reader to-- guess where?

someone else's website or blog.

even so, blogs seem to be getting shorter as people's tolerance for reading lengthy material seems to have diminished. i think we'll find that popular blogs will hang on for some time to come, while small-time blogs like mine will hardly ever be noticed. but, that's personally ok with me. i blog mostly for myself-- gaining any readership or picking up a few on-line buddies along the way is icing on the cake for me. oh-- i do love icing, too, by the way. but, my feelings won't be hurt if no one ever reads another post that i write. remember-- i feel lucky that anyone even finds me online in the first place!

what bothers me more is the consequence of people not being able to pay attention because of social media. i'm starting to see it some at work with younger people. many of the "20 somethings" who are fresh out of college at my job cannot have a conversation with you without checking their phone every other second because of some new tweet or text message from a friend. some breaking news update or a blurb about the latest popular meme keeps interrupting work flow and stalls important discussions on how to implement priority projects at work. worse, these same people have a tendency to then interrupt each other (and those nearby) by physically visiting one another in their respective cubicles-- discussing the very interruptions which are constantly bred by their digital devices. and then their chatter interrupts those around them-- those of us who are trying to concentrate on real work.

don't get me wrong-- the younger crowd can be clever and quite dedicated once they get back on task. you get to see a lot of fresh creativity and amazing talent and flexibility for problem solving from younger people. but, i'm not sure the trade off always pans out in the end. despite all that talent, the a fore mentioned mentality that i described cannot be helpful when an emergency is happening in the office environment. As if oblivious to the pressures of prospective unemployment, they still insist that you still stop to hear this really funny joke that someone just re-tweeted while the manager is standing around asking why the server isn't up.

ain't nobody got time for that.