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Journal hesdeadjim001's Journal: Opinions, please 5

Journal by hesdeadjim001
Recently there have been a few bloggers out there who have asked serious questions of their readers.

One asks whether she ought to break up with her long-term boyfriend, as he is chronically mopey, stalled in his career and generally miserable. Another asks if she ought to intervene after her good friend terminated a pregnancy. Apparently, the father of the baby washed his hands of the whole situation and left the woman to face the procedure and its aftermath alone. This blogger wants to approach the man's mother!

I do not ask you, my "right hand side of the Bell Curve" friends, the answers to the questions posed. Rather, I am interested in reading what you all think is too big a question to be posed on a blog.

Moreover, what do we really know about a person through his or her web journal? Can we get a good picture of a personality through almost daily postings? Is it valid to analyze someone through their writings in this medium?

I look forward to your thoughts.

Namaste. ~HDJ

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Opinions, please More

Opinions, please

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  • And more about the credence given to the answers.

    Oftentimes, people posting such queries are mostly venting and maybe looking for new perspectives. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with including a blog query in a complete decision-making process. I would begin to worry if the poster was only taking input from random internet entities.
  • The problem is that every response is a direct result of what you write. People reading your blog have nothing else to go on.

    Even if you try to objectively represent the problem, what you say and don't say and/or how you say it will still have an effect. It is pretty hard not to put a subconscious spin on it, I think.

    As a result, there is a risk of "Garbage In/Garbage Out". And a risk of accidentally constructing your question in such a way that you are guaranteed to get back what you want to hear. And a
    • That's a valid point. A dear friend told me that he blogs in order to reduce his shame in feeling what he feels. When he writes about something (a behavior or something about him which he does not like) and receives support from this community, it makes him feel less shameful about the behavior or the trait.

      Perhaps blogging is our modern-day confessional. Instead of a confessional, we sit in front of our shiny little boxes and relay our sins to the priests of cyberspace.

  • "Do you think I look fat in this blog?"

    Other than that, the only boundaries I can think of are really only relevant to me personally, that is, I would never talk about personal issues involving my wife and myself -- because it's private. Meanwhile, if anyone asks me something untoward, then I just don't answer them. I have full control over my private space, and exercise that control -- and if someone doesn't want to read about it or participate in the discussion I started, so be it, don't read it.

    As fo

  • People can put on an entirely different personality over text. People are comfortable with talking about really personal things over text. Even with strangers, or sometimes especially with strangers. If you would really like some validation that your version of the story means that "you are right", because you can get others to read your text and face value and agree with that, it's good for that. It can be really easy to "fall" for someone over text, because you get an idealized version of them.

    So no,

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