24 Hour Posting People: Bloggers feel the pressure
Matt Richtel in The New York Times over the weekend had an interesting article entitled “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.” The article was about how bloggers, Internet writers and Web commentators feel increasingly under pressure to produce numerous large volumes of material for their online audiences, which then leads to fatigue, general burn-out, injury and sometimes even death.
In terms of cautionary tales, the article cites two recent cases of blogging being bad for your helath; one blogger died, while another had a heart attack. (Of course, the part that blogging played in each incident could be debated.) That being said, many everyday bloggers and Internet writers routinely complain that they feel they’re constantly running uphill, fighting a fight they know they’ll never win. As Richtel writes:
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
And this is indeed a true and real phenomenon. Our always-on wired world doesn’t leave room for contemplation, much less for catching your breath, Norman Mailer once identified writing as “feeding the goat,” and Charles Bukowski once lamented that writing poems that were published soon after felt like throw-away journalism. But in each of those cases, in bygone eras, there were at least moments of rest and reflection; goats get tired, and even printing presses — along with their news cycles — are some times dormant. But in a flattened world filled with Twitter and “live blogging,” the Web never sleeps.
And it’s not just bloggers who are feeling overwhelmed. As Richtel writes:
Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.
The nightmare that Orwell predicted in terms of Big Brother always watching us has finally come true, except it’s not the government that’s watching us. Instead, we’re all watching each other. Because the bloggers may be writing about it, but the rest of us (including you) are online reading it.
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Great post! I’ve been reading a lot of responses to this NYT article in the blogosphere, and these two cases seem to be anecdotal evidence of blogging being bad for you health.
One of the bloggers who died was 60, another was 50. Could their age have something to do with their death? Did they have a history of health issues, even prior to becoming bloggers?
Nevertheless, you do make a good point. While the digital age we live in is quite a blessing, it can also be a curse. From email to social networking, blogs, news feeds and everything else I consume, it never stops!
In the end, I think people will have to learn balance how to balance their lives out a little better.
People make a big deal about the downsides of technology, of being chained to their laptops and Crackberries and cell phones, but until our technology goes Cylon on us, we have the ability to use it to the fullest extent to enhance our lives — and to stop using it when it doesn’t. (Granted, I say this while simultaneously using two laptops within 10 feet of my Blackberry and iPhone …)
i read this post hours ago. nothing new yet? ;+)
-bowerbird
It is always sad to hear about these things. To an extent, blogging can be tedious some times but not to the point where it puts your health at risk. We all die someday.