It has swept through the world faster than a tornado through Baltimore and taken countless teens along for the ride. This phenomenon has changed how people communicate their thoughts and express their feelings. Not quite a Myspace, but way more than a diary; for many students, blogging is the ultimate way to fuse their thoughts, feelings, and daily events all into one easily accessible online journal. According to researchers at Technorati, a blog host site, blogging has grown to be so popular that a new blog is created every second! However, with all this excessive typing, one has to ask…is blogging causing more harm than good?

According to bloggers, there are many benefits to blogging. Senior Becky Larabee loves how “it allows me to keep in touch with people that I do not get to see very often…leaving a comment is much easier than making a phone call.” Not to mention, it’s an easy way for someone to express their opinions without any actual confrontation. “People just use blogs to brag about things they can’t say in person,” says junior Sarah Koolhof. Clearly, not everyone sees it as a good thing.

When it comes to relationships, constant contact could be doing more harm than good. Senior Sylvie Blank calls blogging an “addictive drug” and many students worry that blogging is cutting out the face-to-face social contact that used to be considered part of natural interaction. “I don’t like to use blogs because they seem like a waste of time,” senior Michael Ellis comments. “Why look at a computer screen when I can just talk to them?”

Others worry that sites like Myspace and Xanga are allowing people to become too close. Koolhof says, “I think there is a reason why diaries are supposed to be kept private…there are some things about you that I don’t want to know.” In some cases, blogging can lead to problems. Larabee comments that, “People will leave you anonymous comments that are less than nice and make nasty posts about you…those people are just too cowardly to confront you…so they have to resort to saying mean things over the Internet.”

When it comes to blogging being worth the drama, students seem to have mixed feelings. Larabee summed it up quite simply, stating, “If I was constantly dealing with [drama], I wouldn’t want to deal with it anymore…but as long as you don’t get obsessed, it’s a great thing!”