I started officially blogging on October 1, 2001. I had started adding updates to my personal website as early as December 2000 but I only became familiar with blogs (and actually figured out that what I was doing had a name) around September 2001.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging for five years (a half decade!). Other than maybe driving, I can’t think of too many other things that I’ve been doing for that long. In thinking about my blogging habits over the past five years (and looking through some of the archives), I’m amazed by how blogging and my own personal style have evolved.

When I first started blogging, I was 21 years old and a senior in college. When I first started blogging, my blog posts were all over the place, without any real focus or theme. I blogged almost everyday and most days I blogged multiple entries. At that time in my life, it was really important to capture all the really boring nuances of my life (some of you are yawing and thinking, “And this has changed?”). Even though I hardly ever discussed 9/11, I definitely started blogging because of it (perhaps more so on a subconscious level). When I first started reading through some of my early entries, I was really disappointed (and ashamed) with how little I wrote about what was happening in the world around me. At first glance, all I saw was a sheltered shallow self-absorbed kid. I then started thinking about what that time in my life was really like - I was terrified. It really felt like the whole world was coming apart. Aside from my family’s experiences during the first Gulf War (the extent of which I was a bit too young to fully realize), late 2001 and early 2002 were the grimmest geopolitical times I’d ever experienced (remember I grew up during the Clinton years). The economy fell apart and my job outlooks were bleak. Blogging was a way to put all of that aside (and sometimes to vent about it all). When I look back at those early posts, I’m amazed by how confessional and personal some of those early posts were. Even though I knew other people could read my blog, I’m not sure I really thought about it in that way. For a period of time (the first 6 or 7 months), my blog didn’t even have comments. Only after I had started blogging for at least a year did I make a connection between what I was writing and who was reading it.

When I entered SI, my blog became far more important in my social life. A lot of my friends already knew about blogs and some of them even started blogging while at SI. For that portion of my friends who blogged and read blogs, blogs became places where we could keep tabs on our friends and propagate inside jokes . . . . strategy hubs, if you will (OK, that’s taking that joke way too far). When I look through some of the comments that I get on this blog, I sometimes wonder if my blog has become clique-ish. Do you need to feel like you’re part of the club to leave a comment on this blog?

Today, when I blog, I’m very aware of my audience. I know other people can read my blog so I don’t share everything that happens in my life and I don’t even dare share anything as intimate as some of my early posts. I generally don’t post about politics or the news – mostly because I don’t think anyone who reads my blog really cares about my analysis of those topics. Based on my audience, I think I even have a pretty good idea of what sort of posts will generate more comments than others. And I’m disappointed when I compose what I presume to be a good post but it doesn’t actually receive many (or any) comments.

This may sound drastic but I truly believe that my blog has changed my life. I don’t think I would have ever discovered HCI, user experience, or social computing if it weren’t for keeping a blog and reading other people’s blogs.

As I was writing this post, I went back and perused through the archives and looked through what I was doing in Novembers past:

  • 2005 – I was so busy, I had no idea how I’d get everything that I needed to get done before Christmas break. Fitster was still a bunch of concepts in our heads and GSI-ing made me feel old.
  • 2004 – my first semester at SI, I was writing that horrible 501 paper (the did-you-do-your-readings assignment)
  • 2003 – I was applying to master’s programs and Sarah FINALLY released Afterglow.
  • 2002 – I voted for the first time.
  • 2001 – I was knee-deep in undergrad business classes . . . oh and my printer ran out of ink. I also bought tickets to my first River of Toys show, headlined by Natalie Merchant. John Mayer, who nobody had ever heard of, was playing, too.