Category: Internet matters

Recently, this blog got its 100,000th visitor since August 2005. While such numbers don’t have much meaning in and of themselves, they do provide an opportunity to take stock and consider what has happened so far and where things are going.

Between August 2005 and July 2007, the major purpose of the site was to document the Oxford experience and stay in touch with friends and family while off in England. Since returning to Canada, it has had less of a defined purpose. There has also been a conscious decision to make it significantly less personal overall. As a result, it now mostly consists of either personal musings on impersonal topics or responses to books or news items. This is not wholly without value. It fosters interesting discussions and provides a mechanism for keeping in touch with some friends. It may also help to inform some people a bit about topics of interest or importance, such as climate change.

At the same time, there are some things that concern me. I don’t really see enormously much value in providing links to information available elsewhere, along with minimal commentary. Additionally, I worry a bit that writing drips and drabs every day could sap energy that might otherwise be put into longer-term and more ambitious projects.

With Emily here, I also have less time to spend on random musings. As such, writing a daily post is more often than not an exercise in frantically scanning the news for something that I can comment upon without overly much thought or research. One solution is to dial things back and only write when I actually have something I want to say. That removes the impetus to come up with something daily – which has advantages as well as disadvantages – but should help to keep me from boring people with items of only limited interest or creativity.

I remember once reading an interview with science fiction author William Gibson in which he argued that he could not keep a blog because it would sap his ability to write other things. I think he used a steam engine analogy: arguing that the minor releases of pressure associated with writing blog posts prevent him from developing the working force required for more substantial pieces of writing.

This lines up somewhat with something Nassim Nicholas Taleb said in his book. He argued that excessive focus on day-to-day and hour-to-hour news actually reduces one’s ability to understand the world. This is because it creates the spurious impression of trends when there is really only chatter; also, the time required for such constant perusal saps one’s ability to read more substantial things, like books.

While I don’t have any firm personal plans to respond to these observations, they do seem valid and indicative of a period in history where throughts are addressed in an increasingly frantic and disjointed manner.