Long Live Blogging

Way back in 2006, a new study finds blogging was more popular. Do I need to remind the study-makers that: "Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone of ages 13 and older with a valid e-mail address."

People used to blog more because it was the medium. In the advanced age of 2010, when people want to write a restaurant review, they go to yelp or urbanspoon. If people want to micro-blog, they go to twitter. If people want to find out what their Mom ate for dinner, they go to facebook.

And as for the crisis that only 14% of teens blog and 10% of adults blog, that still gives us over 200,000 blogs to peruse from the metro-Pittsburgh region alone. I think that's enough. Dare I say the ones that we lost were (in general) worse? To see a sampling of the many blogs that are left, head to pgh bloggers.

As for blogs, these findings beg a question: If their writers are more likely to be older, why aren't their musings characterized by more maturity?

You know what? When I blog, I'm immature. I call names. I don't research all the facts before spouting out an opinion. You know why? I don't get paid to blog. I blog for fun, and I clearly don't have an editor breathing over my shoulder. Chris Potter, over at the City Paper, has some interesting perspective on whether our esteemed newspaper journalists are also immature.

And some day, when Matt H is Mayor of Pittsburgh and Bram Reichbaum of the former Pgh Comet is the lead news anchor on KDKA, I'll be reminiscing of when I used to read their immature blogs.