THE BLOGGING ADDICTION: CAUSES & CURES

If you are not a blog addict,

someone you love is. A son or daughter, perhaps. A close friend. Perhaps it is your lover's secret sin. No family is immune to the addiction; no relationship is impervious to the personal storms unleased by rampant, out-of-control blogging.

How do you identify a blog addict? Perhaps he says he has other things he'd rather do than watch a movie with you on Friday night. Perhaps she sneaks off to the computer desk once she thinks you've fallen asleep. Perhaps he is bleery-eyed and unable to track when you talk to him about plans for next weekend. Perhaps she plays at you again and again with the tips of her fingers, as if trying to see if you are real.

The blogging addiction occurs for a variety of reasons. "I spend all day working at this computer - it's so lonely," one might say. "No one listens to me at home. At least someone out there in bloggerland is willing to read what I have to say," says another. Some may take to blogging simply for the pleasure of it, like recreational sex. For others it may fill a deep-seated need to "be somebody."

Whatever the cause in a particular case, the enablers are everywhere: Blogspot, Bloglines, Journalspace, and Typepad are a few of the more obvious ones. All of them are readily available at the click of a mouse, and some of them are free. Free like maybe the little bag of free sample your heroin dealer offered you at the beginning of that addiction.

You'll see that one who is tempted to blog starts by hanging out with bloggers (in a virtual sense) and soon enough gets sucked into the endless cycle of Post-and-Read-and-Post-and-Read. And soon enough, something that started out as an innocent and fun way to pass the time turns dark and ugly and begins to ruin a life - and not just the blogger's life, but the lives of those around him.

Unlike the heroin addiction, the cure for the blog addict is not necessarily total abstinence. Rather, as with many sexual addictions, the goal is to change the habit and the mind-set, so that the patient gains control of the activity, rather than allowing the activity to control him.

Is it hopeless? Not necessarily. The loved one of a blog addict needs to:

(1) Ensure that the blogger posts no more than once or twice a day.
(2) Aid him in reducing the number of blogs he reads - get it down to no more than fifty per day.
(3) Assist her in lessening the number of comments she leaves on other blogs to no more ten per day maximum.

These seem to be reasonable standards; anything more has the potential to become extreme and to push the addict out of control again.

One who loves a blogger has to practice tough love at the first sign of back-sliding, has to remember Lysistrata and tell the out-of-control blogger: "No more driving my bus til you get this under control, buster! (or babe!, as the case may be)."

"I blog, therefore I am" is a great and dangerous fallacy and the blog addict needs to understand that.

BLOGGING IS NOT
LIFE - LIFE IS LIFE
Bumperstickers will be issued.

Yes, blogging can be one facet of a fulfilling life, but only when the blogger is in full control. The Blog is a monster which must constantly be subdued, wrestled down like some wild animal, tamed and made subservient to the blogger's enlightened self-interest. In its proper context, under strict watch, with a blogger who is in full control of his faculties and in control of the activity itself, blogging can become a useful and therapeutic adjunct in the development of one's emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual life.

When the blogging is out of control, the blogger will end up - well - like you and me.

Comments

[suzanne]

who????
ME!!!!!!!

I'm not nearly as restrained
as this picture

[Tom Montag]

You, Suzanne? You have TWO blogs. That cranks things up to a whole 'nother level!

[suzanne]

okay Tom
everything is here this time
and yes
the bumper sticker is REALLY BIG

[Peter]

This is very good, in a way that's quite unlike your usual very good writing, I think.

Keep it up! (Well, wait for the wife to fall asleep first...)

[Tom Montag]

Hi, Peter. Thanks. Yes, it is not very often I put my tongue quite so far into my cheek. Even so, there is probably more truth to it than we'd like to admit sometimes.

[elck]

I went to bloglines for the first time in two days. Tom, you had eight new posts.

Hmm, lemme see, how does the math go...

[Tom Montag]

Huh, math? It has never been my strong suit. I'm more of a word-guy. Maybe you noticed....

[BethW]

My name is Mary Beth, and I'm a Blogger. . .

[Tom Montag]

"Mary Beth," you just made me laugh outloud, loud enough I think Mary heard me out in the kitchen.... I'm still smiling. We could put our heads together and co-write "A 12-Step Program for Bloggers." :)

[beth]

Don't recognize a thing you say here.

[Tom Montag]

Heh-heh. Yeah, right. It's sad when the first thing you do when you get home from a trip is to check out Bloglines to see how much catching up you have to do. Oh, my God, you guys are animals. I'll never catch up!

[Terry Keith]

I and relate, really relate. I am writing a blog on addiction and feel already blogging has turned into an addiction.
http://blog.usdrugrehabcenters.com/

[Tom Montag]

Addicted to blogging about addiction? That takes things to a whole new level, doesn't it. I took a look at your site, and see that you are handling the real cases of addiction, while mostly what I was talking about in my post was an obsession we choose. I guess even you have chosen it? And, having chosen it, we can "un-choose" it any time we want to. Right? Right?? We can, can't we?? :)

[Jenn]

I LOVED this. Perfect.

[Tom Montag]

Jenn--thanks for the good word. Hey, I took a look at your blog. Has anybody told you you're a really funny writer? Oh, yeah... they have....

[Monica]

I found your site because I am tired of this compulsion to return to celebrity sites and write my thinkso's. It's not important and I am wasting so much time. It is an escape from the mundane. The comments about all those stars are basically worthless. They're out there making millions and we're inside writing about it. No need for sunscreen. Need light treatment to keep the blues away while I stay inside and type. My legs cramp up, sit on pillows, and add some behind my back. This is not healthy. I want to stop it.

[Crabmeat Thompson]

I thought of you today when I was teaching a class. I have two of them, basic writing at the business college here. I retired in June and we spent the month of July in Ireland, and I was broke, so I'm not retired anymore. I feel like a coddled millionaire athlete without the coddled million. Athlete, I guess, too.
Anyway we had something about Wisconsin in the reading and I told them how beautiful it was and how they should get in their cars ASAP and drive west until they were out of PA at least (although those mts are the best thing you'll see until you pass Chicago) and see some of the vast beauty of this land. And in Wisconsin, I told them, there's pretty farmland and Cheese. They were laughing because they have seen Packers fans on TV with cheese hats. Now I have to devise an elaborate Cheese Ceremony as a huge lie for their tiny brains to feast upon. I'm off to Wichita in about 30 hours, for the Winfield Fiddle Festival (can you tell I'm itchin' to smell some fresh air?). The full-time student stays here, cramming for her math exam and her independent study in Irish lit & hist. She's got my copy of the Tain bo Cualynge that I bought at the Yeats museum in Dublin (amazing -- they had facsimiles and in some cases original Mss that you could handle, and WB himself as well as Seamus Heaney, on tape. Best to Mary