blog: Distress, Coping, and Blogging: Comparing New Myspace Users by Their Intention to Blog
Submitted by Marina on Thu, 13/03/2008 - 18:30.
An interesting paper by James R. Baker and Susan M. Moore about Myspace users and blogging has been published on "CyberPsychology & Behavior.
ABSTRACT
New Myspace.com users (N = 134, mean age 24.5 years) completed a questionnaire about their intent to blog and several psychosocial variables. Intending bloggers scored higher on psychological distress, self-blame, and venting and scored lower on social integration and satisfaction with number of online and face-to-face friends. Intending bloggers may view this activity as a potential mechanism for coping with distress in situations in which they feel inadequately linked with social supports.
Blogging
As I enter my 6th year of serious blogging I am in need of some serious self-analysis. If anything, blogging (even my lazy aggregation style), has led to some pretty interesting encounters in the real world. I often get approached by journalists to write about 'social software'; in fact doing another interview tomorrow for the Sydney Morning Herald. Blogging is healthy if it builds 'weak-ties'; those links to colleagues or potential acquaintances in the real world. It is also a healthy way to engage with the online world and organise your thinking within it. But like most things it is about balance; making sure that your online thinking doesn't get 'too big' whilst neglecting more fruitful engagements with the world. (http://www.craigbellamy.net)