Yes, social media has really harmed blogging.
Pre-Facebook and pre-Twitter, my audience was about 2-1/2 to 3 times larger than it appears to be now. (And I'm not sure why my Blogger statistics are so much higher, often an
order of magnitude higher, than my low-estimate statistics package indicates.)
But I'm not dead yet. In fact, I feel happy.
One thing I've started doing is seeding/mining my blog for ideas and sources for writing for publication. I'd been on a long hiatus as I blogged. It feels good to have recent publications again.
Seeing how things were going, I once considered using Twitter and/or Facebook to bolster TDR traffic. But couldn't bear to use either which seem like shitholes for mental health and polarization.
I never did join Twitter, never used Facebook to point to this blog, and last year finally abandoned my personal Facebook for good.
Yet with my 16th anniversary of solo blogging coming up this year, I persist. Blogging "burnout" never seems to last more than a couple days. And since I generally schedule some postst several days ahead of time such lulls don't really show up.
Anyway, I hope some people find value in this or enjoy it. But if nobody else does, I like it.
About Me
- Brian J. Dunn
- I live and write in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan AB and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. Former American history instructor and retired nonpartisan research analyst. I write on Blogger and Substack. Various military and private journals have published my occasional articles on military subjects. See "My Published Works" on the TDR web version or under the mobile version drop-down menu for citations and links.
