There have been some attempts to study blogging in terms of its psychology and it being a phenomenon. In a 1999 study, Kiyomi Yamashita, Yasuyuki Kawaura, and Yoshiro Kawakami first explored the multi-facetedness of blogs, citing specifically its ;self-oriented; and reader-oriented; features. They found that blogs shared the closed space; characteristics of a conventional diary in the sense that they tend to reveal more information than the author would disclose in face-to-face communication; however, they noted that the act of releasing the text as web content signals knowledge by the blog author that these contents can be viewed anonymously by many people, implying that the author wants the contents to be known.

In 2002, Susan Herring, Lois Ann Scheidt, Sabrina Bonus and Elijah Wright analyzed the contents of 357 random blogs, and suggested three ;genres; as to the purpose of blogging: personal journals, filter blogs, and knowledge blogs. They also found that an overwhelming number of blogs were personal blogs. Of interest to psychologists is a study in 2005 by David Huffaker and Sandra Calvert who demonstrated that blogs are helpful determinants for teenage bloggers in shaping their individual sense of gender identity, as gleaned from their revelation of personal information in their blogs, in the way they employ language styles, and in the way they readily present their nascent sexuality.

 In 2007, Asako Miura and Kiyomi Yamashita also explored the psychological and social influences in continuing to blog, noting another phenomenon of ;ishikoro; (meaning ;pebbles;), a Japanese term for abandoned blogs. In that study, they affirmed that self-satisfaction, relationship to others, and skill in handling information had significant positive effects on the intention to continue blog writing.

But what is of importance to me now is the study in 2004 by Bonnie Nardi, Diane Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht, and Luke Schwartz who were able to detail the psychological motivations in blogging. Accordingly, blogging is motivated by the following purposes:

To document one’s life. Most bloggers contend that blogging retains a certain superior alternative to that other form of communication available to most of us today: emailing. Emailing entails direct contact to the recipient, an act that also subtly demands the act of replying. Emailing is, in a sense, highly ;intrusive; to both sender and recipient. Blogs, on the other hand, have a broadcast nature, where authors put out information instantaneously—and no one need to respond unless they really wish to. Reading is also voluntary, when convenient for the reader. Bloggers also contend that a blog is better than plain webpages because webpages are considered ;static,; more formal and carefully considered, and less authentic. According to one blogger, ;with a webpage, you don’t hear someone’s voice in the same way.;

To provide commentary and opinions. The content of blogs is often accused by more mainstream communicators as ;mindless chatter.; Bloggers however contend that what they write is not just plain chatter: most bloggers say they comment only on topics they find important.

To express deeply felt emotions. Blogging is a form of catharsis for many people. Blogs give people a place to ;shout out; their obsessions and passions. My friend Carljoe Javier tells me, ;I blog as a means of purging. I think the majority of what we write isn’t great, yung mga bad feelings for the day, outlet yung blog. My example is the poso negro. When you start pumping, really filthy stuff will come out.;

To articulate ideas through writing. Blogging here becomes a muse. Poet and essayist Mia Tijam says of this: ;Blogging is daily practice for writing. It allows me to explore form and content in creative nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry. It helps my style and voice evolve, and keeps both dynamic and at the same time constant in its growth. It gives me encouragement in writing creative nonfiction, and allows me to know what should be written about given the comment/feedback mechanism. It allows me to demonstrate literary theory and criticism…;

And, finally, to form and maintain community forums. Novelist and speculative fictionist Dean Francis Alfar refers to this in telegraphese: ;New publishing medium. Feedback mechanism. Point of contact with other writers.;

What interests me, however, is Gumbrecht’s offshoot study of blogs as ;protected space.; Gumbrecht, in that study, basically contends that blogging is a communication refuge in a world of too much instantaneity. She reports that blogs are in some ways unique as a communication form because bloggers actually control the content of their blogs, and receive feedback in a constrained setting. This constraint is essential to blogging and provides one of its basic allures for potential bloggers, because despite the Internet’s promise of ;freedom; to write about anything, bloggers are aware of their audience, and this inhibition of behavior is elicited seemingly by bloggers’ conscience as well as acknowledgment of social consequences.

Because of this, most bloggers use ambiguous language and references, sweeping generalizations and undefined context, as well as forewarning and disclaimers to write their posts, and still remain true to the act of informing the world about their personal lives. In a sense, we can say that bloggers tailor their posts with an audience in mind. A sample post from a blog goes like this: ;I’m an idiot sometimes, but I’m coming to terms with it, and I know that everything will work out in the end, because it always does. I may not think that the end is what I want right now, but I will be happy when I get there. The only frustrating thing is that I have a couple of conversations coming up that will probably just suck, and there’s no way around them... but I don’t know when they will happen yet, so for tonight at least, I am okay with that. Resolution needs to come soon, though—I hate not knowing, and I need some solutions and conclusions as soon as possible.;

Here we see sweeping generalizations and undefined context at work, with the blogger believing that the intended audience (probably close friends) actually know what she was referring to, and/or that the blogger does not want to reveal everything to the entire Internet audience.

Most bloggers prefer blogging than face-to-face communication or chatting or emailing because of blogging’s promise of ;limited interactivity.; Blogging, you see, is not interactive in the sense by which we perceive other media communications. Face-to-face communication, for example, has conversational partners receiving instantaneous responses from one another either verbally or non-verbally. Interaction here is cotemporal as well as simultaneous: while one talks, the partner simultaneously receives the message and can respond concurrently. Chatting, as in mIRC or YM, presents another model, where interaction is cotemporal, but not simultaneous, since instant messaging programs require a carriage return (pressing ;enter;) to send a message to the partner.

Blogging is neither cotemporal nor simultaneous. Responses are not immediate. This is the very allure of the medium for many bloggers. Here, a person reads a blog post, can choose to comment to the blogger, and at some later point, the blogger may choose to reply to the commenter either within the forum of the blog or through another channel. In face-to-face communication and even in chatting, when we don’t respond instantaneously to something communicated to us, there is that feeling of being ;ill at ease; for not being able to respond in a correct manner and on time. Thus, something intimate like ;I feel sad; is often difficult to express or to receive in face-to-face communication. Blogs, however, shields one from immediate social interaction, and thus is the perfect medium to convey more personal matters without the burden of obligation. One blogger in Gumbrecht’s study chose to blog about her grandfather;s death because she couldn’t really talk about it but still wanted to express her strong feelings. Blogging became a form of ;therapy; for her emotional state. Blogging thus gives some people a channel to share their feelings when they otherwise would not do so.

      I find blogging fascinating because of the strange beauty of its many paradoxes: it is a psychological shield that affords the blogger a forum for even the most intimate of expressions, done in a language that is both inhibited in style but ultimately freeing in range.