3 Reasons to Blog More Often in 2018

At this point anybody that is paying attention is probably sick of "Why Social Media Sucks" articles." However, if we just keep doing social media the same way and don't change, things won't get better. I'm not under any illusion that anything I personally do here is going to have any significant impact, and that is fine. More blogging and less FaceTwitterGram will make my life better. That's enough.

1. Writing is good for you

By writing I mean stringing together sentences into paragraphs, not GRAARR, GRARRR,GRAAARRRR on Twitter or Facebook. In theory, all writing should be equal. In reality, it's not. Also, when you are composing a blog in a text editor like I do, or even in the compose window on Wordpress, you are not fighting Facebook's or Twitter's efforts to get you back to clicking and liking things. Also, blogs are just simply less reactive. You can't dash off a quick snark and insert it into the conversation with a blog. Your blog content has to be independently worthy of being read. It's not going to just show up in the responses of some A-lister on Twitter. Being less reactive means you have time to consider your thoughts, and consider if the thought needs to be published at all.

Consider this. If Trump didn't have Twitter and instead all his thoughts had to go through Whitehouse.gov as blog posts, how much happier would the world be? 99% of it would never get published. Hat tip to Dries Buytaert for the Whitehouse.gov example.

2. You control the filter

On social media, the algorithms decide what you see and react to. They are designed to get you to engage, not to think, not to learn, not to be content, but to be agitated enough to self-sooth by buying something from an advertiser. It's an advertising business, and content people are not prone to over consumption. You have no control on Facebook and Twitter. You may think you are in control, but you aren't. You might be really smart, but Facebook's engineers are smarter. They decide what you see, and thus what you react to.

You can't write about everything on your blog, so you have to filter. And since it's your blog and presumably there is nothing feeding you an algorithmic stream of things to blog about, you have to be your own filter. This is healthy not just because you aren't ingesting the Facebook or Twitter feed, but also because deciding how to filter, deciding what to and what not to write about, is a valuable skill itself. Blogging forces self-editing, and that is a good thing.

3. Your blog is an asset

Unless you want to be a social media manager, you will likely never show your Facebook account to a potential employer. If you are smart, you will actively resist any attempt by an employer to infiltrate your world on Facebook, but that is a subject for another post. Same with Twitter, although with Twitter being public by default there is, in theory, the ability to turn your Twitter account into an asset. In reality, not really though because Twitter is mostly a cesspool these days. Way back in 2004 an employer told me this blog was a factor in me getting hired. Not because I showed some brilliant expertise or that I even showed any flair as a writer. It was simply because it showed I could string together sentences into paragraphs and make a coherent point in writing. It's kind of a valuable skill in the real world. It's still way more valuable than the ability to craft the perfect snark in 288 characters.

Blog more in 2018, and FaceTwitterGram less. You'll be happier, healthier, and more content. I guarantee it.