Does Blogging Ease Work-Life Worries?
The unexamined life may not have been worth living to Socrates, but in the age of blogging, there's such a thing as too much introspection, suggests Naomi Schaefer Riley in the WSJ.
The 'streams of consciousness... once reserved for women chatting over cups of coffee" are now laid out online for others to see -- posts about work and life that Schaefer Riley says would be exhibitionist, were they not "so boring".
But these blogs say a lot about the workplace and the working world. It's telling that one of the ongoing obsessions of the modern-day blogger is work-life balance -- whether juggling work and home life is damaging to your job, or family, or both.
We may earn more than our counterparts did 50 years ago, but greater choice and rising average income have been accompanied by greater depression and dissatisfaction over the past 50 years, according to Professor Lord Layard's landmark book of 2005, "Happiness: Lessons from a New Science".
This year's economic uncertainty is only adding to those balance worries -- stress-related absences account for over 40 per cent of all time off work in the UK. Worldwide, layoffs have taken their toll on those who survived the cuts (often stretched to do tasks outside their area of expertise, constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall, feeling guilty about their colleagues who were cut) and those who didn't.
So it's not really surprising workplace (or unemployment) worries appear in blog posts. Does it help to pick over it in public-facing posts and tweets or are we are spending too much time examining life's mundane moments, rather than just getting on with it?
Of course all this digital navel-gazing won't solve anyone's time-management problems and might even be detrimental -- scrutinised too closely, almost anything can appear distorted (the argument against micro-management).Yet, the uptake of social media speaks to some need -- and perhaps yields a return longer term beyond the comfort of discovering like minds worldwide.
Maybe it's just about 'a problem shared'. As BNET's article on managing stress in the current economy observes, a strong social network combats isolation. Posting online is a way of contacting that network, or developing one. Just be careful what you choose to reveal online. Airing your workplace woes to the world may be cathartic, but proceed with caution.
(Image: the Alieness GiselaGiardino, CC2.0)