So How is Blogging Different from Facebook?

While catching up on the blogosphere last night, I ran across news from two good friends over at Front Porch Republic.  From one friend came word that he is battling the disease of shingles.  The other wrote about his experience with law enforement in Arizona — two speeding tickets thanks to cameras installed on Phoenix’s freeways (I guess they’re not so free). 

After reading these and emailing the one friend to wish him good health, I wondered if I had just experienced what millions do through Facebook, an Internet phenomenon that entirely escapes me.  I don’t know what it does, why it’s useful.  But maybe what I encountered at FPR is exactly what happens on Facebook – going on line to see what friends are doing (or, in this case, is being done to them). 

And then I recovered and realized that on Facebook (it seems) people only tell what they’re doing.  On blogs, at least the better ones, people reflect on what their doing. 

That would appear to make blogging more valuable (he wrote while patting himself on the back).  It may explain the difference between improper and proper personal disclosures.  If it’s done in a way that let’s people know who shouldn’t, then it’s improper.  If it’s done for the purpose of generalizing about the human predicament, then its proper.   (But it better be good.)

Thus ends today’s meditative moment.