The present and future of blogging

Since blogging is such a new phenomenon, its future is uncertain. I myself have been at it for less than two months, but it is difficult to imagine that someone who started blogging a year or so ago would still be doing it in 2050. Any readers would have long ago tired of constantly being exposed to whatever was coming out of that someone's mind on a daily, or even weekly, basis.

The typical blogger of whom I spoke a couple of weeks ago would have long ago reconciled with her parents, whose foibles would seem far less weighty than the joys and adversities she would have suffered in subsequent years. She would furthermore likely be embarrassed at the things she wrote for the world's benefit in her youth, which she could, of course, easily delete. By then she would herself be a mother of children, who might be less than fully tolerant of her own imperfections. They might see fit to blog about them, assuming that blogging is still around by then.

I should probably ask myself for whom I am writing. In the absence of comments (which I and everyone else seem unable to install here) this is a bit like talking into a brick wall. I know that Gideon Strauss is one reader. I am also aware of some of my own students and former students reading this. So I suppose I am primarily writing for them. Relatives? I don't know that they are even aware of my blogging. Even if they were, they might not care. (I wouldn't blame them, believe me!) InterVarsity Press has a link from the Political Visions and Illusions webpages in their on-line catalogue to my professional website, which is in turn linked to my personal page, which is in turn linked to this blog. So it is conceivable that a reader of my book might eventually find this.

Once the academic year starts up again in September, I may use this to alert my students to stories in the press about important political developments in Canada and the world. In this respect my blogging might be seen to flow out of my role as a professional educator.