Just a couple of days ago I was thinking about my blogging journey, and realised I have probably been blogging for most of my life now. This got me thinking about why I blog, and what is the point of still keep posting in the age of social media and TikTok. So today I would like to share some of these reflections, as well as a short list of reasons why I think it is still a good idea to write a blog in 2024.
My blogging journey in short
I believe that I started blogging when I was 21 or 22, right before moving to Beijing for a Chinese language study programme. At the time I would mainly write about my personal life and the music I listened to, and then once in China I started sharing photos and anecdotes from my experience there, largely for the benefit of my friends and family back home — as crazy as this might seem now, at the time there were no smartphone or social media to send photos to everyone.
After I closed that blog down (the platform I was using shut down), I moved to Blogger and started blogging about music and something else I don’t remember now. I just know that since that first blog, I have always felt the urge to write and share my thoughts, ideas, and experiences with the world through blogging.
And then came my professional blog, the one I opened after completing my CELTA in 2016 to share classroom ideas and connect with an online community of like-minded professionals. WanderingELT was probably my longest and most prolific blog (you can still read the posts from that blog HERE), so I was a little sad when I stopped feeling motivated to write and decided to abandon that blog too. I also lost touch with most of the people whose blogs I would read and who shared my passion for teaching and blogging, and that is a real shame.
Luckily (and predictably I would say) in 2021 I decided to open The Mast-Head, when I realised I missed blogging so much. Thinking back about all these blogs, I think there are several reasons why I still keep blogging. So here they are.
Why I keep blogging in 2024
- it’s a way of avoiding social media while meeting the need I often feel to share ideas and experiences with the world;
- it’s a good way to practice my written English, and writing in general, something I not only enjoy but also feel I need to be able to do properly since I often teach writing skills to my students;
- I like reading blogs because they often provide peculiar insights and points of view that I would not find in a standard article or among the barrage of useless stuff on social media;
- in the age of ubiquitous videos and pictures (which are types of media I don’t feel comfortable making or sharing), blogging gives me a way to express myself using a means that I enjoy: the written word;
- possibly I feel nostalgic about a type of internet which doesn’t exist any more;
- it’s so much fun!
How about you? Do you still read blogs, or write one? What motivates you to do so?