To Blog or Not to Blog?

I came across an interesting bit of research presented at a recent conference of the British Psychological Society in Edinburgh. (New Scientist link)
Dr Elaine Duncan of Glasgow Caledonian University and Dr David Sheffield of Staffordshire University questioned 94 diary writers and compared them with 41 people who did not keep diaries. Some health workers and researchers encourage their patients to keep diaries, but Duncan and Sheffield found that the diary writers in their sample had statistically significantly greater levels of anxiety and symptoms such as headaches, sleeplessness, and digestive problems.
Unfortunately the study couldn't show causality - whether diary writing was the cause of the symptoms or merely another symptom of an underlying malaise.
Fortunately for fellow bloggers, this seems to apply primarily to people writing about traumatic events or ordeals, so keep your blog happy and all is well :)

In other news, I was somewhat taken aback by the reactions of two friends to whom I proudly showed my new blog. They both made unqualified statements to the effect that bloggers suffer from the delusion that the world finds them interesting and takes them seriously.
To be fair this may well be true for many bloggers (do a search for blogs by misunderstood artists ;) ), but it's also true for many more people who (perhaps thankfully) haven't discovered blogging yet. Point: People = amusing; blog = tool.
And anyway, if my blog provides someone with some small amusement - either at my content or at my expense - then I'll count it a success :)