The web makes it easy to have multiple personalities. I wonder if this has an impact on our mental state... But it's easy to have a set of multiple blogs, and it might even be preferable to having just one which then receives a mixed set of posts. Targeting different audiences might make blogs more 'popular' in the sense that you might be happy to listen to person X talking about some professional topic, but couldn't care less about their cat. So, have two blogs: one for professional stuff, one for personal ramblings.
I started this blog for the Web 2.0 course, and I intend to maintain it as the kind of general, informal L&T blog. It might only be interesting to colleagues or people who know me, just as I only follow some blogs because I know who the people are, and I wouldn't follow them if I didn't. About a year ago I started my first blog, which only had very sporadic posts, as I wanted to avoid being another of those people who just blog because they can, and who think they're so important that everybody in the world needs to know what they're doing. On the other blog I will now only post 'technical' stuff, so its target audience are people who might not know me, but are interested in the subject. This blog here will probably appeal more to people who know me, or are in a similar situation working in HE.
The great thing is, you can choose what to follow. A bit like the difference between going to a lecture and going to the SCR. Either you're predominantly interested in the people and what they do, or you want to hear about their work only.
I do think that Web 2.0 tools are changing the way we work, the way we relate to each other and the way we perceive ourselves as individuals, especially within groups - so yes, I think there is impact on our mental state, perhaps on what we think of as our 'identity'.
ReplyDeleteFunny, though, the very think I admire about your language and computation blog is that your voice is very personable, whilst addressing technical subjects. :-)