Blogging – good for the soul?

It is now a couple of years since I began my blog. As with most people who start blogging I was tempted to try by seeing what one of my colleagues at work had done through his blog. It has been an enjoyable experience so far, I have found that it makes me read around subjects and the news more widely, so it has to be good for me!

There are those who disagree of course, like Andrew Marr, in his famous tirade about bloggers, he told the Cheltenham literary festival;

“A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people”

However, I am not aware of any bloggers having to take out super injunctions – so perhaps we can take Mr Marr’s comments and put them to one side?

I have also managed to get a couple of other people interested in blogging, my son Sam and his fencing instructor Chris Beadling. They have both started blogs, both are very different, but it has set me thinking that perhaps more people should try blogging – and particularly from an early age. Let me explain;

Chris Beadling started his blog a few weeks ago and has settled into what I see as the ‘norm’ for bloggers (especially males). He is finding it liberating as far as I can see in enabling him to ‘get things off his chest’ but to also have a voice about things. Like me he is finding it quite addictive – have a look, his blog is here.

Of more interest in this respect is my son’s blog, it is purely based around his current love of gaming – Xbox and the like. Not a subject that I find particularly interesting (although we live it at home). But, since starting his blog a few weeks ago he has managed to publish something almost every day – quite an achievement for a 14-year-old who really isn’t keen on reading or writing things (much like most 14-year-old boys as far as I can gather). His blog is here.

But I believe there is a deeper thing happening here – Sam enjoys blogging, and the writing of the posts is not seen as a chore because he enjoys talking about the subject at hand – spelling and grammar leaves something (ok, a lot!) to be desired but we are working on that (my wife is a very critical editor to us both!)

With social media becoming so much more a part of our everyday lives (many people are now on Twitter that you wouldn’t have imagined would be 12 months ago), is it not time for this element of our lives to become part of the school system as well? Perhaps not as part of the main curriculum, but surely part of the school life in terms of after school activities and similar? If a 14-year-old who really doesn’t ‘get’ reading is happy to spend time away from his Xbox creating blog posts isn’t this something to try more widely with kids?

Is the blog a more ‘useful’ form of social networking?