The NY Times reports blogging is stressful and possibly detrimental to a person’s health.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other ladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
As James Joyner notes blogging can be stressful but life itself is stressful as well.
I blog for fun. Sometimes to poke fun at people, like with my knucklehead awards, or to sometimes write about serious subjects or news(Mostly about Florida) that I don’t think are getting the attention they deserve. Is blogging stressful for me? Maybe, when I let someone’s stupidty get me all worked up, but my struggle with cancer and ensuring my wife is taken care after I’m gone usually bring me back to reality. If you blog, enjoy it, be yourself, and remember that there are other more important things to do.
Maybe the NYT can do an article on how working for the print media is stressful. Telling about the writers and staff on newspapers who either closed up recently or possibly in the near future or face job uncertainty because of newsroom jobs being reduced. I’d think that type of career has to be stressful also.
Hat tip- Below the Beltway
