Where have all the bloggers gone?

How does one start blogging? Why does one continue?

There are a few stalwart blogs active these days, and I must look at a dozen of them almost daily.

I started blogging because I like sharing photos and stories about events/people/places. I like that I can do it on my own time.

Japanese dogwood

As my COPD and Bronchiectasis has progressed, I'm required to sit and use a nebulizer to inhale a couple of medicines which help me cough out the sticky phlegm which settles in the far reaches of my lungs.  So I've got a laptop and can type while clinching the little mouthpiece and doing the half hour of breathing.  What do I do then? I read lots of things on the internet, and also load my blog pages.

That's at least twice a day.  Ancestor sleuthing is one of my favorite pursuits.  My 3 family trees still have a lot of people I haven't discovered yet.  I'm now enjoying the brothers and sisters of people in my direct line, the great uncles and aunties.  And looking at their lives not only gives me hundreds of new cousins, I often find out facts about my direct ancestors...so it's a win/win use of my time.

I wish I didn't sit in front of a digital screen, nor that my family would, as much as we do.  Wishes are horses and we all would ride, said the old rhyme.  We don't need horses to get around any more, and maybe we don't even sincerely have wishes either.  We do have our vision plugged into fantasies, games, words shared through texts, and trivia which zooms into our devices.

This lovely tree is in the parking lot where I get my bi-weekly allergy shots

I noticed several years ago (maybe 6-8) that the blogs started having "memes" or a theme which could be contributed to by other bloggers...and then found the joy of commenting on others' blogs.   I continue to share weekly blogs to my favorites, as a challenge and an interest in the other folks who I've gotten to know pretty well.

But the number of bloggers I follow is steadily declining.

We used to have a Pottery Bloggers site, where other bloggers would not only share pottery information, it would be gathered monthly so that site would be the go-to place, organized by different topics.  And then at the end of the year, the administrator of the site would add up the number of blogs each potter had had listed (simple algorithm) and become one of the Top Pottery Bloggers of the year.  My blog was coming in in the teens each year.  I was fine with others who posted daily about pottery, since my posts are not always on that topic.

Then came the burst of Facebook posts...and many bloggers would share their blogs over there (myself included.)  They were being seen by many more people, if you consider the number of comments, "likes" and shares, which represented maybe a quarter of those who actually saw the post.  However, of that big group of people, maybe only a few would actually click on the blog and go read it.  I never knew, but figured it was like most group surveys, something in the 10% or less area.

So I still blog.  And enjoy the few other bloggers who share comments with me, going both ways.  It's like a Facebook group (which I've also enjoyed joining) where maybe these dozen people spend some time every day listening (reading) each other's posts, and maybe commenting if they are so moved.

Will I continue?

Will I write a book instead?

My autobiography seemed like a good goal when I was younger, thinking of all the juicy stuff I was doing in the 70s, and when I retired wouldn't it be fun to write about it...but I've forgotten most of it.  My many journals have silly things recorded.  And with the faster paced lives we now lead, reading any book is a luxury compared to those digital devices.

After all, I read most of the library books on a digital device already!

But holding a nice physical book, reading and turning pages, I want to keep doing, and help keep "bricks and mortar" libraries in business!  Each of us does need to work to do that!

Remember that people employed by organizations are being replaced by robots every day...and we need those people to be employed! They need to too of course.