Relationships

Bloggers ‘feel more connected’
Chee Chee Leung, Science Reporter
March 4, 2008 – 2:53PM

Blogging may help people feel happier and more satisfied with their friends, according to Melbourne researchers.

The findings, from researchers at Swinburne University of Technology, show that after two months, new bloggers felt more socially connected than those who did not blog.

Psychologist James Baker said this suggested that blogging could actually be good for people – helping them to feel part of a community.

“It makes people feel closer and more connected,” Mr Baker said.

“That’s good because there’s been a fair bit of press about the dangers of blogging … so you’d hope there’s some sort of benefit.”

The research, conducted by Mr Baker and Professor Susan Moore, is based on two surveys, with the first asking 134 new users of the social networking site MySpace whether or not they intended to blog.

The results, published in the latest edition of the journal CyberPsychology & Behaviour, showed people who intended to blog were more psychologically distressed than those who didn’t intend to blog.

They had higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress, were more likely to use self-blame and venting to cope and also less satisfied with the number of friends they had.

Two months later the researchers followed up 59 of the same group of MySpace users, this time comparing those who had blogged to those who had not.

The findings, which have been submitted to a journal, showed the bloggers were happier about the number of friends they had, both online and face-to-face, and were more likely to reach out to these friends for help.

‘They felt more socially integrated,” Mr Baker said. “They felt that their friends were a better fit and they connected better.”

The researchers are planning further research that will look at the experiences of a larger group of bloggers.

Blogging has taught me a whole lot, but it’s the relationships I made through blogging that really taught me the important lessons in life. I learnt that

1. I have to be responsible for my own words, and stand by my words.
2. people are actually interested in what I have to say.
3. people actually like me. For the way I am.
4. the more you open up yourself to people, the more love you can get in return.
5. it’s okay if people don’t agree with my point of view; it does not make them like me any less.
6. revealing your flaws will not drive your real friends away, but make them accept and love more of you.
7. I can be myself, even if it means being judged by others, because I have to be myself.
8. I deserve for good things to happen to me just as anyone else.
9. I can make people happy just by being happy myself, and by showing them that I care for and appreciate them.
10. I am actually… beautiful. In a way that only I can be and no else can.

*

And the best part about relationships? It’s that they cannot be bought.

i think buying relationships is something that will ultimately disappoint you because the beauty of relationships is that they cannot be bought. that’s what makes the sincerity, the authenticity of a relationship.

you are only in a relationship with someone, whether as a friend or lover or family member, because you want to. (other factors like blood relations and proximity notwithstanding, because the desire to form a relationship has to be there first in order to establish one.)

and that’s why i feel very blessed these days. i’ve made lots of awesome friends online, one of them being you. =)

– me

ps. Thanks Dave for the link to the article above! 🙂