Blogging is a new fad for teens

By Willa Simmet 2008

Teenage blogging is on the rise. When I say blog, I mean an online diary, a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page, also called a Web log.

A teenage blog can range from a venting sot of a confused teenager to a daily recap of the teen’s events with poor spelling and incomplete sentences to a collection of poetry to a teen’s opinion on a subject with writing good enough for a Pulitzer Prize.

Eighty-seven percent of all teenagers were on the Internet in 2004, according to a report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Twenty-eight percent of teens have a bold, according to Jupiter Research.

Many of the teens’ parents have no idea it even exits. the argument is that teens will reveal too much about themselves over the Internet making it easier for predators to find them.

CFHS sophomore Aanya Snell said, “If I was worried about someone reading my blog, then I wouldn’t write it.”

This is how many teens are thinking. Teens will reveal everything in their blog — what they do. where they go, the names of their friends. When you write in a blog on such websites as xanga.com, livejournal.com or blogger.com, this information is open to the whole world. Anybody who wants to read it can.

“I hope to get people aware about my opinions and about things that are happening in the world and the problems we have. That’s basically it. It’s also so I don’t get in trouble at school for expressing my opinions,” said Monica Reida, a ninth grader at Holmes Junior High.

I have a blog. I try to write things that I think will keep people interested, but I have no way of controlling who will read it.

Many people have no idea that their friends even keep a blog. The thought that someone I don’t even know exists could be an avid reader holds me back from at times letting out too much information.

Before the age of computers, people had diaries that they kept locked and hidden under their bed or under cracks in the floorboards.

Now that the cyber age is upon us, there is so much information on the Internet; it is impossible to read everything. This information overload may be a new security in itself, a new lock, key and hiding place under the bed for blog writers.

Blogs are a good thing. They are a writing tool and give many teens the opportunity for their opinions to be known.

As long as you are OK with the fact that anyone could be reading it, then I say more power to you.

You could be the next Stephen Yellin. Yellin, a 15-year-old sophomore from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, Or, in Yellin’s words, “Republican Ville,” posts on Daily Kos, the most visited liberal blog on the Net.

He posts an analysis of Senate, House and gubernatorial races across the country almost weekly. He researches and follows hundreds of races.

According to an article from Wired.com, a poster who goes by the Yellow Dog Dem on Daily Kos wrote, “The kid is a budding superstar. … If you hadn’t informed us otherwise, I would have thought that Tellin was a seasoned political operative.”

“I always say that while I can’t vote, I can sure make a difference,” Yellin said, according to Wired.com. “It doesn’t feel odd — it shouldn’t feel odd, because all Americans should be dong this. We as a country need to be more involved, especially our youth.”