April 5, 2004

Pregnant Blogs

Time has a story on personal non-political blogging by expectant mothers.

According to Sherry Turkle, director of M.I.T.'s Initiative on Technology and the Self, even people who normally guard their privacy can experience a kind of "disinhibition" with blogs, in which there's a disintegration of boundaries. Bloggers easily lose sight of the fact that they're publishing to a potential worldwide audience of millions. The result is a disconnect between the intimate way people express themselves and the very public way such information is communicated. Still, when strangers log on to parenting blogs, the blogger's initial surprise - "Why would people want to read about me and my family?" - typically yields to pleasure rather than embarrassment.