DUCKPOND

I am not really sure why I write this blog, although as I mentioned almost four years ago when I started it represented an opportunity to write, which otherwise would not be possible. When writing is not practiced the ability to express thoughts and feelings is lost. Practice is a matter of confidence and as well a constant reminder of what can go wrong. Sometimes these mistakes are caught, and sometimes they are not. The challenging thing about blogging is that somebody may actually read what is written, which seems to happen sometimes.

According to Jennifer Wapner in Scientific American, writing is actually therapeutic, and the implication that other people might be reading what you are writing is more therapeutic. She writes:

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

Scientists now hope to explore the neurological underpinnings at play, especially considering the explosion of blogs. According to Alice Flaherty, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the placebo theory of suffering is one window through which to view blogging. As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly.

Flaherty, who studies conditions such as hypergraphia (an uncontrollable urge to write) and writer’s block, also looks to disease models to explain the drive behind this mode of communication. For example, people with mania often talk too much. “We believe something in the brain’s limbic system is boosting their desire to communicate,” Flaherty explains. Located mainly in the midbrain, the limbic system controls our drives, whether they are related to food, sex, appetite, or problem solving. “You know that drives are involved [in blogging] because a lot of people do it compulsively,” Flaherty notes. Also, blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art.

The frontal and temporal lobes, which govern speech—no dedicated writing center is hardwired in the brain—may also figure in. For example, lesions in Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe, result in excessive speech and loss of language comprehension. People with Wernicke’s aphasia speak in gibberish and often write constantly. In light of these traits, Flaherty speculates that some activity in this area could foster the urge to blog.

Beginning with the suggestion that blogging is healthy introduces the medical model of human activity.You might equally argue that walking is therapeutic, and I am sure it is, and can be shown to be. Turning the argument around, is at least as interesting. In that case the suggestion who be that denying people the means and opportunity to express themselves is not merely not healthy but in an overt way is dehumanizing since peoples human nature is denied.

For me at least, that observation strengthens my belief that organized systems of domination and their cultural underpinnings are inimical to human well being. Sometimes technological changes leads to cultural change. The invention of printing is the most evident example which lead to the Reformation, a cultural change that continues to this day with some issues unresolved. Blogging might not be so much as a change in itself but an development of a historical process, driven by intrinsic human nature more than therapy.