A report from Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology finds bloggers are less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with friendships. (Dude. That’s because, if not for blogging, we would have no friends.)
The study was conducted on MySpace (WTF?). 134 MySpace users completed a questionnaire from the researchers — likely bulletin-spamming all their friends in the process — with 84 intending to blog and 50 not blogging.
Potential bloggers were:
o Less satisfied with friendships
o Less socially integrated
o Less part of a perceived community than total non-bloggers
o More likely to vent and express emotions
After two months, the same group of people received a second set of questionnaires, to which only 59 responded. The people who blogged felt a greater sense of belonging amongst like-minded people, and were just generally more confident about that dreary mirror called life.
But regardless of whether they blogged, ALL respondents felt less anxious, depressed and stressed after two months of online social networking. (Probably because they are unemployed or trawling Top Eights on paid time.)
The report may be followed by a longer study across a wider spread of people. Let’s hope so.
