What about the idea that keeping a weblog (especially if you work in front of a computer all day, and take small random breaks from your work to do a little blogging) is a way for information workers to maintain a sense of self in an otherwise depersonalizing situation (i.e., the long hours many spend doing mundane information processing tasks for their corporate benefactors.) Maybe the small amount of time lost to these personal pursuits is O.K. in the end as it allows workers to always maintain a little loop of their own personality in the background. The weblog is an excuse to see and comment on things that are important to you personally, and you can do this pretty much continuously (espcially, like I said, if you work in front of a computer all day.) I know Alex has commented that this sort of personal project can really make working for someone else bearable (or even just acceptable.) And while people have always done this (like reading on the job when things are slow, or writing a personal letter) the concept of micropublishing your thoughts for others, and the pressure to keep updating your blog, makes the weblog sort of time wasting much more valuable for maintaining a sense of self that is separate from your job. I'll have to work on this idea a little.
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- jim 5-27-2000 6:37 pm