Professor Says Bloggers Are Losers

He won't make many MySpace friends with talk like this!

Bloggers are living in a world where emotions may be real but everything else is make-believe, says a University of Calgary professor in a new book.

[...] Michael Keren, who has written "Blogosphere: The New Political Arena," suggests individuals who bare their souls in blogs are isolated and lonely, living in a virtual reality instead of forming real relationships or helping to change the world.

"Bloggers think of themselves as rebels against mainstream society, but that rebellion is mostly confined to cyberspace, which makes blogging as melancholic and illusionary as Don Quixote tilting at windmills," the author says. [...]

"In this world of blogging, which the whole world can read, you have a personal expectation about a readership that's just not there for the millions of bloggers who are writing their personal feelings." [...]

"Many of us end up like Father McKenzie in the 'Eleanor Rigby' Beatles song, who is writing a sermon that no one is going to hear," he suggests. "Some of us are going to be embraced by the mainstream media, but the majority of us remain in the dark, remain in the loneliness."

Link: globeandmail.com: Author laments lonely life of bloggers.

As a critic of technology and self-loathing blogger, I'm inclined to agree.  But it sounds like he's painting with too broad a stroke, judging by this article anyway.  I absolutely love the creepy book cover, though.

Comments

[Rob Gilpatric]

Hey Kevin, I gotta say this guy's full of BS. I got a kick out of your site the first time I read it two years ago and I've read it very regularly since. I guess I just like your angle on things. This dude, Michael Keren, appears to be genuinely worried about people, but I have a different problem with bloggers. My biggest beef with joe-blow-blogger is: He fails to serve me, his reader. He fails to entertain me or inform me. And this is what makes for a successful blog, is it not? Why do we publish our thoughts and ideas on the internet for all to see? To connect? Hell no! It's to *entertain* or *inform*. This is how a site benefits its readers. For example, some sites become heavily traffic'd right off the bat, but others are so seldom visited, it's as if they've got vines growing all over them and weeds growing tall in the front yard? Why? Because these sites serve no one but the blogger him(her)self. It is a failure to serve that causes loneliness, and this isn't limited to the internet. But the successful one draws the eyeballs over and over again because it benefits its readers.

[Kevin]

Thanks for the kind words. I wish I had more time to add substantial content to this blog.

[Rob Gilpatric]

No biggie, Kevin. You just keep doin' what you're doin.