They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece ”” not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
[blockquote] death by blogging [/blockquote] Not something I want on my tombstone.
[size=1][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
This elf has been in much better health emotionally, physically and spiritually since cutting WAY back on blogging time the past 4-5 months.
Blogs are wonderful resources and tools and I’m thankful for T19 and the Anglican blogosphere and the chance I’ve had to play a role in it, but for many of us, it’s very easy to lose focus and balance and to let them control us.
–elfgirl
Dear Kendall – I hope that you will never get like this – nor your elves.
I wish I had read this before I started my third blog. But then I don’t feel pressure about blogging. I publish when I want and when a piece is ready, and I set my own deadlines.