John Naughton contends that blogging is the realisation of Jürgen Habermas’ public sphere “his idealised conception of a forum for democratic debate”, as Naughton succinctly explains (Naughton, 2019). Blogging allows us to express our own personal thoughts, opinions and feelings. The act of blogging can function much like the writing of a column for a newspaper or a personal diary entry, however, feedback on your writing becomes much more immediate. Importantly, anyone can do it. This democratises ideas and allows for intelligent and thoughtful interaction between like-minded individuals just as Habermas had envisioned. While blogging is certainly a great platform for sharing ideas and engaging with others, it can also be a great tool for reflection. As Linor L. Hadar and Oren Ergas note “We can in fact engage differently with ourselves, through mindful attention, while interacting with technology and transform this into a practice of cultivating more aware social engagements” (Hadar, Ergas, 2018). In the aid of mindfulness, this function of blogging can be particularly useful to students who can use the platform to verbalise their thoughts or feelings concerning particular stresses and engage with one another online. Blogging is a multi-functioning tool that could particularly be to the benefit of students like myself if properly utilised.

Citations:

Hadar, L. L. and Ergas, Oren. (January 9th 2018). Cultivating mindfulness through technology in higher education: a Buberian perspective. SpringLink. Retrieved February 14th, 2020, from https://link-springer-com.ucd.idm.oclc.org/article/10.1007%2Fs00146-018-0794-z

Naughton, J. (October 12th 2019). Happy 25th year, blogging. You’ve grown up, but social media is still having a brawl. The Guardian. Retrieved February 14th, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/blogging-twenty-five-years-old-all-grown-up