Are Blogs Neccessary?

    Are Blogs Necessary?

By: Tempestt Flaggs  

     Recently, I was instructed to do a series of blogs by this amazing professor who shall not be named. In fact, the whole time he was explaining the assignment I found myself questioning, "Who actually uses blogs"? Grandparents maybe? Because I definitely wouldn't take much time on reading. Maybe a quick skim perhaps. To helps answer this question I began to ask people on the campus of  Texas Lutheran University if they read blogs and from this I observed that there are four types of people when it comes to blogs. The reader, the skimmer, the skipper, the incompleter. Let's evaluate the types, shall we?

Reader

    Now the reader is pretty self-explanatory in my opinion but let's break their reasoning down a little bit more. So this is the person who will read a blog to its full entirety. But they are not just reading any blog that presents itself on the scene. They are looking for the eye-catcher, like a catchy title or an interesting picture something that interests them specifically. This can be anything depending on the person, from gossip to food, and maybe crime. It all depends on the reader's prerogative. Blog Reader was actually pretty rare among the people I spoke with. I also notice they were the people who would light up when I asked about their blog consumption. I mean they already know what their favorite kind was and the ones that they knew to skip. They would often tell about the ones that had recently enjoyed. It is safe to say that they are people that bloggers hope to reach when they publish an article.

Skimmer

    The skimmer is the most relatable around the Texas Lutheran campus. I in fact will consider myself a skimmer. Like the reader, they are drawn to the catchy title and interesting photos. But bloggers have to be spot on when choosing these things because the skimmer is not really for something to read when scrolling on there phone.  Skimmers are the types that need to have that attention-getter. Something to make the mind say, "Ooooh I wonder that about"? If that happens most likely they will click on it scroll down the page to see how long the article is and consider if it is short enough to read, if not they are looking for if there is a video of some sort that can summarize it for them. If there is no video they will read anything in bold and maybe the first and last paragraph. If that does not work they will click off and continue to scroll if they haven't already. As you can tell a skimmer is a blogger's worst nightmare they are difficult to please. They are the type that can completely misconstrue an article. Making them a danger to the author of the blog.

Imcompleter 

    Like the skimmer, the Imcompleter can be very dangerous to a blogger, especially a blogger that enjoys using plot changes and world play throughout their writing. These are the people who half-ass read a blog and then complain about its content. Completely discombobulating what the author is trying to get across to its readers. There are a lot of people out there that do this without even knowing. Sadly they won't even realize it either unless someone that actually reads come along and corrects them, but even then they probably will not admit their wrong and swear they know what the blogger is getting across. This is especially dangerous for gossip and political blogs because they affect people's thoughts on a certain thing or people. It is safe to say that the Imcompeter is the most threatening to a blogger's reputation.  

Skipper

    When it comes to the skipper they can not be bought. Anything more than a paragraph repulses them. If they do click on the blog it's because they are hoping there is a video if not they are immediately clicking off and going on about their day. Skippers are a blogger's worst nightmare because you can not write a blog in a paragraph. Unless they do a full-on video vlog. If a blogger does that they will become a vlogger and lose all their beloved readers. There are many blog Skippers on the Texas Lutheran campus. I even noticed that some of them do not even like the idea of watching vlogs because their attention span is two to five minutes max! A true blogger would already know that this is not the crowd they would want to appeal to so they should spend their time catering more to the readers or even the skimmers.

Ending Thoughts

    Being a blogger in this day and age is no easy task, you have to appeal to many different crowds of people. Considering my experience at Texas Lutheran a blogger has to have some kind of image that includes reference text or a reference video to at least appeal to the majority. The blog form does not have to completely die it just needs a little bit more than words and a couple of pictures. Bloggers have to take into consideration that people might not want to sit and read a long passage anymore. Blogs are necessary for people who want those extra details that a video might not cover. They are still essential to people who enjoy reading. But for the ones like me, we need a little bit more push to draw us in to view blog content. I personally enjoy blogs that are easy to read and have pictures or videos. Yes, blogging is from the dinosaur ages but it does not have to die with them.