We had a case of strep throat in our house earlier this month, and while on Technorati I noticed that bloggers tend to blog about their illnesses, and a Technorati search reveals that strep is pretty common at this time amongst bloggers. It's here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here...
It's kind of interesting, our tendency as bloggers to feel we must blog about our temporary illness. I know I've mentioned a cold or two in my blog before. Why do we post this information? This kind of illness blogging is a short-term subject (hopefully), and a blog is not how most of the people we care about will find out that we're sick for the short-term. Most illness posts are about symptoms and don't have any content that would be helpful to the reader. I guess it's just a way to vent over being sick, and a way that is relatively new. It's not like people call everyone they know when they get strep to let them know they have it. And they don't write letters to everyone. But they will post it in their blog, so the world can know.
Anyway, the reason I personally blog about such things is because 1) my blog is my journal, or diary. I record the happenings of my life there. 2) I do a lot of side computer work for people and if I am ill I'm not getting anything done. The blog allows them to come find out what Jim's status is and why he hasn't been returning e-mails and such.
Plus, it's nice to announce to the world the I need sympathy!
Cheers,
Jim
Why do I blog about our illness? Because it's something the grandparents would want to know about, but it really doesn't warrant a phone call. It'd be one thing if we were calling them about something else. We'd mention it then. But, we wouldn't just call them to tell them we're sick...