Out with the Old, and in with the NEWER New Media

Technology is constantly trying to advance the way we do things by making the process easier and quicker. Apparently, America's youth no longer has the patience to share their thoughts by sitting and writing a lengthy blogpost; instead they turn to Twitter and Facebook to share their thoughts via length-restricted statuses and tweets.

This New York Times article "Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites like Twitter" explains, "Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family" (Kopytoff). The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging amongst children ages 12-17 fell by half so that now only 14% of that age group who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

Now, people feel they can share their life in a quicker and easier fashion through these other platforms, and they're getting more hits this way as well. The NYT article goes on to explain that some bloggers are using Facebook and Twitter to help promote their blogposts to a wider audience, so that instead of being competitors, blogs and social networking sites are actually complementary.

Interestingly, however, although the youth demographic is losing interest in blogging, the older generations are sticking with it. "Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent" (Kopytoff).

What accounts for the growing decline of blogging amongst today's youth? Is it laziness, boredom, lack of free time, short attention spans? If today's youth no longer want to take the time to write blogposts (nor, presumably, to sit down and read others' blogposts) because they would much rather have their news synthesized in 140 characters, what does that mean for the future of other more traditional news sources? And if today's youth is losing its interest in longer, nuanced prose, what does this mean for the future of civic engagement and the democratic process?