Are bloggers more prone to depression than other people? (or are depressed people more prone to blogging?) Discuss.
(Still a couple to guess on the pop quiz. Win a fabulous HD wide-screen television! Or possibly a signed postcard from my personal postcard collection.)
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5 days ago
14 comments:
Well writers are. Well anecdotally they are. And bloggers are writers.
I'm not sure it's bloggers per say but depressed people need an outlet. And blogging is an outlet.
You may find the numbers correlate no more than say golf.
Mail the Freakanomics guy and ask hima bout it.
I don't think they're more prone to depression but non bloggers don't always feel the need to tell everybody about it so it just seems that way.
If only more bloggers were good writers, I might not mind hearing about it so much.
It's probbaly not because we are more prone but maybe because were more in touch with our ability to express what were thinking and feeling, so we do.
maybe it's the introspection thing; when I'm in full blog mode, I end up thinking a lot about how X makes me feel or how I would feel if Y happened to me.
Damn, I missed your quiz. That's made me depressed now, I'd better go and blog about it.
Adrian - that economics book actually looks really fascinating - now, there's a sentence I never expected to write.
Jack, true. But you're more literary than me, I find it strangely compelling when people spill their guts, even when the writing is not so hot. I'm just a dirty rotten voyeur...
Good point Greavsie - I remember reading that people often go to doctors saying they've got aches & pains etc because they're not really aware they are down, they just knew that they needed to talk to someone. Hurray for the self-aware bloggers!
Hi Razorhead - v true - also, maybe people feel much more free to spill the beans with strangers than with people they know.
Realdoc - I was saving number 8 just for you - go get it!
Annie,
I don't think bloggers are more prone to depression, just more prone to gobbing off and depression's as good a subject as any when it comes to gobbing off. Locquaciousness I believe is a more common feature of blogging than depression. Surely there can be no worse combination, anywhere, than the locquacious depressive (LD). Now, personally I find the LD depressing. So, are bloggers prone to depression, sometimes. Are depressives prone to blogging, hmm, sometimes. Can blogging make you depressed? Ah, at this point we reach the chicken and egg moment, the dialectical moment that is neither one thing or the other but both. The place where quantity becomes quality, the place where the we can locate the true answer to your question. WHO GIVES A FUCK!
Locquacious depressives dontcha just want them dead?
So, there's your answer. DEATH.
see, I'm depressed now.
and I've blogged it...
there is no...
escape
I don't bloggers are particularly depressed, they just enjoy moaning. I'm fed up with them, on and on, they moan. Moan, moan, moan and complain. It makes me sick the back teeth. I just can't stand it. They never know when to just let it lie, do they? I mean, am I right? I think I am.
Moaning. I mean, honestly.
I think it's the second one, if anything. Real depression isn't caused by external forces, it's a brain chemistry thing. So if depression and blogging are correlated, depression is the cause rather than the effect.
Don't think bloggers are more prone to depression - perhaps we could do a blogosphere survey - I have never been depressed - but then I am not the most comitted blogger!!! Hard to find the time and inspiration sometimes....but it is certainly an intriguing world out there and nice to read others postings.
Dan, Can Blogging Make You Depressed? You've opened up the debate in a whole new direction... Your blog does not make me depressed. It makes me laugh. Hurrah!
Del - 'must grumble' as my dear friend Em says.
Viking - right right right, I agree - I didn't mean to suggest that blogging makes people depressed - was just wondering if there is any correlation between people who are drawn to blogging and people who get depressed - if I was more technically minded I'd do a Venn diagram...
Hi Lorainne. A survey is a brilliant idea - people should stop messing around with this Technorati and tags nonsense, someone should set up an online survey on different aspects, a much more fun way to gather data, eg:
Do you blog:
a) In your work clothes?
b) In your Batman costume?
c) in the bath?
Awww Annie, sorry to hear you're feeling down (or at least I'm assuming that's what you meant). Hope it resolves itself soon. But to answer your question, I think bloggers tend to think more about things than people who don't, er, feel compelled to write their every thought on the internet. And thinking about things too much leads to depression. It's also a sign of great intellect, though (or so I like to tell myself), so it's not all bad.
No no no Patroclus - though thank you for your kind thoughts - I am fine, full of beans - I just have read quite a few posts from people recently who seem to be having breakdowns online. Though I take your point about the great intellect. Clever and sad, or happy and dumb? It's such a tricky one...
Glad to hear it - I thought it wasn't like you!
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