Who blogs for whom and why?

It is 3:18 again, about the same time I posted last night. I must say the nocturnal schedule is quite effective if you need to be alone without the distractions of sunlight, friends, or get togethers. Your only enemy is yourself as your body fights for sleep.

I have made progress on my interdisciplinary studies paper; I may even come up with a solution tomorrow when I finish the paper. So far my question has evolved to How will the explosion of blogging effect the the social lives and traditions of the Iranian youth. By youth, I am referring to the ages between 15-35. Our class is using Allen Repko's interdisciplinary steps from his book Interdisciplinary Practice. A most exciting book let me assure you.

This topic, fortunately, is so interesting to me. I am fascinated by the country, its people, and place in history. It is so frustrating because I know so little and feel the need to know so much more in order to be as accurate as possible. It bothers me that people make pronouncements when they know so little but act as if they don't.

The experience of blogging is different. I have never seriously kept a journal except to record what I did on trips, so this self writing can be difficult at times. I also write knowing that this is going out on the web for anyone to read. I am not worried about anyone collecting my personal information because I am not an idiot and I won't put it on here but my audience is simultaneously myself, my best friend, my family, and any other stranger who has access to the Internet and the desire to actually know what is going on in my life and what I think. How does that even begin to affect what you say and how you write. I also write under the reality that this blog will probably never really read by anyone else and I am okay with that. In my research, I read that for bloggers, power comes from getting a lot of regular readers and fame in the blogoshpere. I am still asking if that is what I want; I am by nature a private person but I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do this blog. (I told myself I would never keep a blog or anything) But all in the name of research, right?

Well, I realized that all I have talked about is myself, maybe that will change next time, maybe not.