The best thing I've done for my peace of mind lately

A few weeks ago, I made a personal rule to only read controversial blogs, message boards, etc. at work. (By controversial, in this case, I mean ones that I know are likely to get a strong response from me -- places that I know will probably contain statements that'll make me want to post something right then and there.) The idea is that while I can and do find time to check message boards, etc. at work, there is no way in hell that I'll be able to write long, thoroughly researched blog posts, as I am wont to do at home.

It's worked like an absolute freakin' charm. There have been a couple of episodes of weakness at home, but generally I've been able to stick to the rule pretty well, because it's not that I'm having to go cold turkey on blogs, nor do I have to stick my head in the sand and lose any awareness whatsoever of everything going on in the world around me; I'm just able to peruse my favorite controversies and keep up on the news without having it suck down half my life. Plus, I have work to distract me, and by the time I go home I'm not thinking about it anymore ... I have this tendency to obsess on things that bother me, leading to either extremely, er, ill-advised blog posts, or staying up 'till all hours having insomnia due to fretting.

Not that I don't still spend plenty of time online at home, but at least I'm not getting myself worked up about stuff. Peace of mind is a beautiful thing.

On Livejournal and personal space

I stumbled across this by accident -- a very interesting essay about the way that Livejournal is co-opting the online fan community and, by extension, changing the face of online interaction: http://www.trickster.org/arduinna/ljs.html (presenting the "con" side of the argument, incidentally). It's written from a fan's perspective but, really, it's interesting even if you aren't involved in online fandom.

The essay touches upon something that I had noticed, in a vague sort of way, about the Internet during the decade-plus that I've been online. The social face of the Internet definitely goes in cycles. Once upon a time, it was Usenet and mailing lists; then it was bulletin boards; now, it seems, there's a strong trend for blogs to be the new face of online interaction, co-opting the roles that these other methods once played. Not to say that there aren't still plenty of bulletin boards and mailing lists in existance, but my general experience has been that they're much quieter and more niche-oriented than they used to be, while the bulk of online interaction is now shifting over to blogs. Livejournal is *huge*. So is Myspace (a site which, incidentally, I've never liked much, and although many of my younger co-workers are Myspace junkies, it just makes me feel old and slightly out of touch). Most people who have large, well-maintained websites include some sort of blog on their site. Basically, as everybody gets online, the Internet is fragmenting. Instead of one or a handful of mailing lists and bulletin board where everybody goes to talk about, say, Buffy, or growing violets, or shoes, there are thousands upon thousands of blogs where people talk about Buffy in between talking about their cats and their plumbing problems.

And what I hadn't really thought about is that it's a very different, much more chaotic form of social interaction than the more orderly models that were used online in the past. Mailing lists, bulletin boards ... they're organized, they're moderated, they're mostly on topic. Blogs *can* be, and I think the essayist is negative enough about blogs that she hasn't really explored all the options that are out there, but generally I think she's right that blog-style social interaction is creating a generation that tolerates a much greater invasion of personal space than used to be the case in the past. (Online, at least. I really don't think it extends to real life at all.)

Drat, got more to say, but gotta go. I'll get back to this later.