Why Do We Blog?

David Gauntlett: Web 2.0 and 'Prosumers'

So I was sitting in my room the other day, browsing the net and tweeting as you do and I thought to myself why do I blog? I never really sat down and thought what my reasons were for creating a blog. I just woke up one day and thought I'm going to create a blog about all the things that interest me. It wasn't until I attended my 3 hour Friday afternoon Media lesson that everything came to light and I came across a theorist named David Gauntlett. He wrote one of the most fascinating books I will ever yet to read (yes I haven't read it yet but I know it will be a good read) called Making is Connecting and it's basically about how making things (''Prosumers'') is essential for society to work and without it society would be VERY boring. It allows people to engage with people around the world and create connections, weirdly reconstructing what families used to do back in the day infront of a tv. Nowadays, when a show comes on we all log into Twitter and have a huge discussion about it, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Whether you are blogging, tweeting, making YouTube videos, Keeking, any kind of interaction with the Web 2.0 which is where you not only consume what is produced on the internet, we are able to engage with it and even create what we and others can consume.

So why do we do it?

• Allows us to express ourselves
• Increases participation in the world - we feel like we play a role by speaking and expressing our views - additionally so that we don't just consume the dominant ideology
• It makes us happpy! Sometimes we don't need a reason to do something, we just do it because we want to because it makes us feel good. 
• We want to be recognised? What's worse than feeling like we are just excisting rather than feeling like we have a purpose or a job or responsibility to do. WE ALL WANT TO BE HEARD! 
• Lastly... we feel like we belong. By creating, expressing and sharing we become part of a group. We have a collective identity with other people who share the same views and interests and therefore feel like we belong to society.