I'd like to think their answers help me stay relevant.
But sometimes, their answers just make me feel obsolete.
For example, this week I took a survey in my journalism class to find out how many of my young classmates read blogs (self-serving question, I know). The answer: none of them.
Oh, and Twitter is for "old people." And Ashton Kutcher.
That's what I get for asking self-serving questions.
With respect to both macro-blogs (like this one) as well as micro-blogs (such as Twitter), the research I read online backs up the results of my highly unscientific survey. Young internet users are turning away from blogs, both as creators and as consumers, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Only 15% of 18- to 29-year-olds now maintain a blog (down from 24% in 2007). The numbers were similar for teens, among whom there has been also a 24 point drop in the number who comment on friends' blogs (from 76% down to 52%). And yes, the majority of Twitter users are 35 and older, according to comScore.
I've never been under the delusion that blogging makes me hip or cutting-edge, so I'm not shocked by those stats--a little depressed, maybe, but not shocked. What I did find surprising, though, were articles like Why Isn't Mainstream Gen Y Buying Into the New Web?, which suggest that the younger generation is not nearly as enthused about Web 2.0 as I would have thought.
What they are enthused by: the mobile web. Especially the mobile web as viewed on a mobile phone. So a smart and forward-thinking blogger, I suppose, would start learning to blog with a mobile audience in mind.
But to be honest, I'm too tired to even think about that right now. It seems like we have to rethink everything these days--privacy, copyright, what it means to be smart, what it means to write well, and on and on. Now I have to rethink blogging, too?
They say 30 is the new 20, but at times like this, it feels more like the new 80.
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