Blog Till You Drop: A Deadly Addiction…

I have been a co-blogger at The Moderate Voice for nearly three years now. After alcohol and cigarettes, I found blogging to be highly addictive. I gave up smoking two years ago (one addicition at a time please!!!) and have heavily reduced my intake of alcohol. My wife/mother ensure that I have meals at the right time, and begin to howl in protest when I am at the computer for more than three hours at a stretch.

Thus, I remain a “healthy” blogger because I am under watch at home (and have not much time when I am travelling on professional assignments). A recent NYT story informs us that the bloggers are toiling “under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.”

The NYT goes on: “They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home. Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

“Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.”

More here…

I have never been (alas!) paid for my posts (and hence look for other work avenues for survival), I can understand the compulsions of other bloggers who have to keep hunting for, and then retaining, a position by working 24/7.

To me blogging is a pure joy. I have been a working journalist for most of my life but now find that the mainstream media has undergone a sea change, and those who learnt the professional nuances in the pre-1980 era have little opportunity to contribute. I and Joe Gandelman, editor-in-chief of this blog, began our mainstream journalism career almost at the same time and worked in New Delhi in the early 1970s.

I had almost begun to feel left out three years ago in the absence of a platform to write. By sheer chance I revived contact with Joe in the US. Joe motivated me to get back to writing…and got me out of my “writer’s block”. So in this way blogs can get people out of stress and listlessness. In fact one can make a contribution towards public good too…so long blogging does not become an addicition. And your entire life is not dependent on this activity…

PS: Maybe the governments should insist on warning signs on all blogs (as on cigarette packets) that “blogging for more than two/three hours at a stretch is dangerous for health”.

[For more blog reaction to this story GO HERE.]