My own personal experience: My mother doesn’t call me as much.
It seems my daily posting has the dual effect of: (1) keeping my her up to date on minutiae in my life, and (2) assuring her I am not lying dead in a ditch.
Number (2) is especially important to her when I am in places like Liberia.
Now I feel less guilty when I forget to call for a week or so.
Are you a blogger? I’d like to get a list going of your unintended and unexpected consequences of blogging. Post your unintended consequence on your blog, link here (or note it in the comments) and I’ll put together a list.
It’s a nice complement to 26econ’s survey of blog readers.
13 Responses
Old post but adding to it:
Friends and family know way too much about me and forget that it isn’t by personal communication but by reading my blog. Therefore, I don’t get nearly enough information from them, yet they think they talk to me every week.
I get emails from strangers asking the weirdest favors (e.g. send them a Lingala dictionary) or advice (e.g. how to work in Africa).
I remember your first European trip many years ago and $700 in long distance charges. Dad always said I could have taken a flight to see you for less.
Thank goodness for Skype and blogging.
Love, Mom
My brother starts to make conversation with me about things he thinks will interest me, and then realizes he got the information from my blog. It actually makes me feel loved because I discovered he reads my blog every day.
My wife discovers I’ve been goofing off at work when I should have been working, and then I don’t get to have sex that night. Totally sucks.
Unintended Consequence:
Ended up in Africa.
First in a conflict zone and now in the Maasai Mara.
And the only reason I started was to get a job in Advertising. In London.
I write rather honest, detailed stories about my life in Africa, including a fair amount of foul language. Then I learn that my grandma has someone print them out for her so she can keep up on me.
When talking to friends and they ask me what i am upto or what i will be doing, they correct themselves and say; ‘Its o.k, i will read about it on your blog’
Its even worse if said friends are on twitter.
Convo killer.
– I spend too much time collecting “evidence” to back up my future posts.
– I spend too much time thinking about my future posts
– I spend too much time re-wrting my future posts
– I spend too much time checking the stats of my past posts
One unintended consequence of blogging for me:
My wife occassionaly checks my email and discovered emails from females that we did not know. I had to explain to my wife that my email address is available to the entire world because of my blog. Having to explain that I was not having an affair was a real uncomfortable situation.
Technology. A blessing and a curse!
unintended consequences:
I tell people things that they have already read on my blog, so that sometimes makes conversation a little bit dull:
“Hey, that one time…”
– “I know, I read it on your blog…”
“…oh, did I tell you…”
– “No, but I read it on your blog.”
One unintended consequence of blogging for me:
My adviser is kept informed on what I am reading / working on.
I am now the go to guy for all things concerning the social web and collaboration at my office. Which is interesting as I am clues about IT stuff. I often find myself making statements that sound really really smart. I now have the whole company on salesforce.