By Emily Stout
Christin Johnson blogs several times a week. Rebecca Jensen has been at it since before her mission. Some blogs have a five-year history, or even more.
Despite how it may sound, blogging is not something you need to resolve with a church authority.
“People who look at people who are addicted to the Internet, they”re like, ”You have no social life!”” said Jensen, a senior majoring in visual arts. “I”m like, ”Well, it”s here.” These are people all over the world with similar interests as you, which is harder to find next to you, in the next room over.”
Like message boards, blogs are usually public forums where anyone can comment on what you post. More recent posts top the page, while older entries sink to the bottom.
Weblogs, or blogs as they are affectionately known, have been around for more than 10 years. Originally lists of links with commentary, blogs were run by true, hardcore Internet enthusiasts since no one else knew how to create them. Before long, however, simplified technology gave the less web-savvy a chance to get in on the fun.
“It”s easy to add,” Jensen said. “I just add, post, blog it, and it”ll be there on my site. It”s very quick.”
Now, blogs are used for a wide variety of purposes. Perhaps the most common use is as a personal diary or journal. This is how Johnson uses her LiveJournal, a popular blogging tool found at http://www.livejournal.com.
Before getting a blog, Johnson kept a paper journal. However, she said it took so long for her to fully express herself that she began shortening her entries.
“I noticed that all of my stories and tales and perils and adventures were getting abbreviated because I had to handwrite them,” she said.
Having an online journal helped her keep up with old friends as well.
“I keep track with a lot of my friends who also have online journals that I never would”ve talked to otherwise, because I”m lousy at emailing and lousy at calling,” she said.
Johnson said she feels she has learned more about some friends by reading their weblogs than she would have otherwise.
Jensen agrees that blogs are a good way of getting to know people.
“You get to know people through what they write, because you can fake writing, you can pretend you”re a 13-year-old girl, but your real thoughts will still come out if you are writing and doing writing processes.”
LiveJournal and other blogging tools are now huge Internet communities, with more than 1 million users logging on to post entries and comment on other people”s weblogs.
“The great thing about LiveJournal, why it”s so popular, is because everybody”s connected,” Jensen said.
Since making deeply emotional experiences public does not appeal to most people, bloggers can choose to make entries private. Or they can do something completely different.
“The first thing I started writing about was our pet lizard,” Jensen said. “That wasn”t very personal.”
