HW 7: "My So-Called Blog"

Over the years online blogging has become very popular, mostly among teenagers. This worries parents because teenagers stay on the computer at all hours of the day, and the parents have no idea what they’re doing. In a way, parents should be worried due to the fact that there have been abductions that have involved young women and men meeting up with strangers. I disagree though sites like Xanga, LiveJournal, and Blogger are used as online journals where people can vent. Parents should let their kids make choices. If they decide to be stupid and meet up with a complete stranger, then that’s their fault. Emily Nussbaum states, “A result of all this self-chronicling is that the private experience of adolescence- a period traditionally marked by seizures of self-consciousness and personal confessions wrapped in layers and hidden in a sock-drawer-has been made public. Peer into an online journal, and you find the operatic texture of a teenage life with its fits of romantic misery, quick-change moods and sardonic inside jokes. Gossip spreads like poison. Diary writers compete for attention, then fret when they get it.” (Kline & Burstein 351) Nussbaum explains it so perfectly. It’s an escape where people can feel free to write whatever they want.