I write these lines feeling a sense of excitement on starting my first blog and a sense of responsibility that I have to be committed to keeping this blog live. Before I decided to embark on my blogging journey, I spent a little while researching the real reason why people blog. A simple Google search would reveal a variety of answers to this question, ranging from an online presence, a continuously updated resume, improving writing skills, making money and so on. However, a couple of them really caught my attention.

Many people who have travelled the world agree that the basic human nature is the same anywhere on the planet – they laugh, cry, feel anger, get upset… American Economist Alan Greenspan, in his book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World writes “All people appear motivated by an inbred striving for self-esteem that is in large part fostered by the approval of others.” This explains the inherent human nature – longing for approval, craze for power or fame, need for recognition, and other factors like desire for money, which can bring you power and fame. Before the digital revolution, it was extremely difficult for a common man to express himself to the masses and thereby have a possibility of getting noticed or being famous. However in the Internet Age (and social media era), common people can easily express their views, get support for it and probably even become famous. An article in IEEE Spectrum magazine, discusses a new word, “datasexual”  – a person who is an obsessive self-tracker. I believe that the real satisfaction that a “datasexual” gets is from sharing his data metrics with others through social media, which adds to approval from others. This attractive prospect of self-esteem by approval of others is one of the key factors that drive people to post on social media and write blogs.

Another key reason for blogging is the desire to contribute to the vast abundance of information on the Internet. Every day, I spend hours connected to the Internet from various devices, consuming data organized by individuals that is expressed in their own words. With the unfathomable amount of information available online, a lot of which has significantly helped me learn and form opinions about a wide array of topics, I feel the need to give back. I see blogging as an easy way to record my learning and experiences online for others to use. Towards this end, being an extensive user of Wikipedia, I recently created a Wiki account to be able to contribute to online articles.

With these two key ideas in mind, I hope that this journey will be a fruitful one, providing me with personal satisfaction and the readers of my blog with some information of value and an enjoyable reading experience.

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