Why I Gave Up Blogs To Read More Books
Posted on March 31, 2008
Filed Under Critical Thinking |
I logged into Bloglines today for the first time in weeks. 1000+ posts. That is how many I missed among the 63 feeds that I now read, or, did read. At one time, just a few years ago, I read overt 300 RSS feeds almost daily. What happened? Why have I stopped? To understand that, you need to know why I started.
In 2002, blogs were cool. These easy online publishing tools had given the “little guy” a voice. And those voices were refreshing. At the time, I was an avid reader, usually finishing off about 250 pages (roughly one nonfiction book) each week, but I cut back on my book reading to spend more time with these media mavericks called bloggers.
Like most human expression though, as it became cool, everyone wanted to do it, and most people were lousy at it. At birth, the blogosphere was the very antithesis of the shoddy amateurism with which the mainstream media portrayed it. Now that blogs have grown up, we see that the mainstream media was right. Blogs suck. Not all of them, just most of them.
You see, those of you who don’t produce media don’t realize that the very structure of modern media necessitates the constant production of crap. I don’t mean bad writing. The writing is very good. I don’t mean uninteresting content, on the contrary, it can be very interesting. What I mean is that the thinking behind most of what is written on blogs is lousy, or more likely non-existent.
The web today is driven by novelty and recency. In order for content companies to survive, they must produce fresh content at an incredible pace. The result, is articles that are more designed to get you clicking than to get you thinking. When you are forced to write a lot, the quality will inevitably go down.
So, over the past two years or so, my blog reading has declined. As the average intellectual quality of blog content decreased, and the average person began reading blogs, I decided to find a new source of inspiration, so I turned back to books.
When you read what everyone else reads, you will think like everyone else thinks. The best way to be original and creative is to have a different set of inputs. Cut your feed reader. Pick the 10 blogs that you like the most, and don’t waste your time with the rest. All you have to lose is those “me too” thinking patterns that social media promotes.
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13 Responses to “Why I Gave Up Blogs To Read More Books”
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Rob,
Good points. A while back you asked for book suggestions it’d be interesting to hear what suggestions you got and what you’re currently reading.
Coincidentally, this morning I cut my list of subscriptions from 150 to 34, before stumbling across your site. It’s a very liberating feeling, and one that I heartily endorse.
[…] Why I Gave Up Blogs To Read More Books : Coconut Headsets The web today is driven by novelty and recency. In order for content companies to survive, they must produce fresh content at an incredible pace. The result, is articles that are more designed to get you clicking than to get you thinking. When you are forced to write a lot, the quality will inevitably go down. Powered by Gregarious (42) Share This […]
Rob,
Very valid points. I’ve been cutting down the number of feeds I read, especially where I see the same topics coming up repeatedly. I’m not sure I can get it down to 10, but I’m with you on the trend.
Mike
“When you read what everyone else reads, you will think like everyone else thinks.”
Given the diversity of opinion in the ‘blogosphere’, I wonder what the odds are that everyone is reading the same stuff.
I subscribe to a TON of feeds, but I don’t read everything they send out every day. I’ve started reading blogs like I read the newspaper — I scan headlines, and read the ones that grab me. There are a few people who I read every time they post something, but they are increasingly rare. And I subscribe to blogs I disagree with, just to keep me on my toes.
Where we have a problem, I think, is when people exclusively read blogs for their information, and only read blogs they agree with. That just leads to inbred opinions.
If I gave up on reading blogs, I couldn’t have read this post.
Isn’t it dangerous to blog about why people shouldn’t read blogs? Your readers might take your suggestion and stop reading *your* blog!
Seriously though, I think you’re correct. Although I’ve sometimes found valuable information from blog posts, I’ve also found you can spend a heck of a lot of time reading blogs and not come away with any really *new* thoughts or information.
I’ve also been trying to cut back on my blog reading in favor of going back to reading more books. I haven’t quit blogs cold turkey like you apparently have, but I’ve been trying to weed out the time wasters from my feedlist, although I haven’t been following the usual advice on how to do so. The usual advice I’ve seen on how to trim feeds out of your feedreader is to remove feeds that haven’t updated recently, or don’t update frequently. I think that advice is completely *wrong*. The goal in trimming your feed list shouldn’t be to reduce the number of feeds you read, but to reduce the number of posts you read (or scan) per day. The blogs that update the most frequently are the ones consuming the *most* of your time. Rather than remove the blogs that post infrequently, I’m removing the blogs that have the highest percentage of uninteresting or non-relevant (to me) posts.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on that strategy.
I’m not so sure reading books will offer any more unique inspiration than blogs. The top business books every year seem to rival the same regurgitated content found in popular blogs. As long as publishers control the flow of what ideas get published and marketed, I think books will offer the same uninspiring content as most blogs.
For me, I have tried to pull my self away from reading all together. The best ideas, exchanges, and epiphanies I have experienced in recent memory have come from constructive debates with “real people”. So analog I know, but there is something about human dialogue that seems to cut through all the B.S.
You’ve hit on a problem I’ve had all along with blogs. Too often they’re written more to generate links, and therefore to generate readers, and therefore to generate ad revenue. Problem is there’s nothing there any more.
I was a regular media person and columnist, and I can tell you, if 2 out of 5 are good, you’re doing well. And those take much work!
So someone explain to me how somebody who blogs twice a day can beat the odds and consistently advance anything of value.
It’s about quality, not quantity.
so … the trick is to read author’s blogs?
[…] When you read what everyone else reads, you will think like everyone else thinks. The best way to be original and creative is to have a different set of inputs. Cut your feed reader. Pick the 10 blogs that you like the most, and don’t waste your time with the rest. All you have to lose is those “me too” thinking patterns that social media promotes. (coconut headsets) […]
I think reading books, quality newspapers or even just getting out into the real world and seeing what is happening can provide inspiration for good articles. I personally feel if you spend too much time reading blogs you are going to severely limit your creativity. There seems to be too many articles in blog land that are very similar.
[…] comes from a post by Rob on a blog called Coconut Headsets. No idea how I once stumbled on it, but a good snippet for all: […]