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Whenever you look for something on Google you get an AI summary, and then you can look at websites and web pages for an in-depth human written answer. At the same time there are dozens of apps for Twitter, the Fediverse and more, but there are none for browsing blogs.
If I look up blog on the Apple App store I get minimal notes and ChatGPT as the first results, and then several non blogging apps. The Android app store is a little better but the first results are for Grok, Daynote, a piano app and a few apps like blogger, journiblog, wordpress and blogspace. All of these are apps for writing, rather than reading.
Substack, Medium and WordPress are suggested but, to me, these apps stopped being interesting years ago. They stopped being interesting when they encourage people to paywall their content, and when they paywall sharing, and more. They stopped being interesting when those with a small audience provide the long tail for those with a big audience. We’re making Substack and other apps more visible by using them, but by using them we become less visible, because algorithms encourage us, and others, to waste time on those with a big audience, rather than those with a niche audience.
I noticed that my fediverse audience, if it exists in the first place is tiny. I don’t know whether that’s because I am less active on the Fediverse, in recent months, or even seasons, or if humanity as a whole is less active on the fediverse.
Blogging isn’t about the audience. If it was about audience then it’s a waste of time. Blogging is about thinking, and about focusing. If we want to use a buzzword then blogging is about mindfulness. It is about focusing for an hour or two on a topic and writing. It’s about stream of conscience and about establishing connections between thoughts.
I was listening to a set of podcasts by France Culture yesterday afternoon and they were speaking about how, in the age of AI, using such technology gets us to under-utilise certain parts of our brain. We begin to depend on AI for thought, and rational connections.
I believe that the process of writing daily, is important. AI could write this within a second or two, but as someone said yesterday, AI doesn’t have vécu, or experience, to use the English equivalent. AI is, as I like to think of it, just a glorified photocopier with deliberate generation loss. It produces derivative content, rather than original content.
I am often struck by something. I spend an hour or two writing but what I end up with takes less than five minutes to read. For all of that thinking, and procrastinating I have little to show. I believe that this is why writing has value.
If I went to Facebook to watch reels, or Bluesky to scroll endlessly for an hour or two, or even Facebook, then I’d see plenty of content but I am passive rather than active.
In the age of AI, where people spend less and less time learning and thinking, and in the age of influencers grabbing our attention on antisocial media I believe that there is real value in reading books, and writing blog posts. We could call it mindfulness but I believe that we keep healthy habits alive.
Blogging matters today, because it encourages us to focus for an hour or two, and, in the age of AI, it keeps us from depending too heavily on a glorified photocopier from forming our way of seeing the world. It also benefits us more than an hour or two of antisocial media.
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