The Wonders of Blogging

Blogging is a wonderful thing and there are many benefits of it that could help you at any age in life. It can help you right now or it may be a good thing for the future. Blogs can come in many different forms but I am not going to go through all that since I already did in my post about Blogs. What I failed to mention in this post is all the wonderful benefits that Blogging can bring. I did some research and have compiled a list, so let's begin!

Image Source: http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/11/welcome-google-apps-users.html

Did you know that writing Blogs and having a positive online influence can help you get a better job? In today's age it has become the norm for employers to do some internet research on a potential employee and having a positive online influence can really help you in this respect. People want to employ people with a strong, and positive, online influence as they can better help their company become like them. A Blog can also earn you enough money to live off. One such success story is of a man called Pat Flynn who wrote a blog about his feelings on architecture. Once he was laid off from his job he began to take his blog more seriously and shortly after was earning $100, 000 per year! Of course, this will not happen to everybody but it does put faith in the fact that you can use your blog to make money, even if this is just some extra money on the side while you maintain your day job. Blogging can also help you become a better writer and one day even a published author or journalist. Since the only way to really improve your writing is to continue writing a Blog is perfect! Plus, you can have people give you feedback from all over the world. This feedback can improve your writing so much that one day you might write a book or even become a journalist. Blogging really can open up many career options as well as helping you out with the one you already have. Blogs are a great way of getting your business out there and known. It really can increase awareness and sales just through a simple blog. Some companies hire a whole group of people just to work on their Blog.

Image Source: http://www.wisesyracuse.wordpress.com

Blogging can also help you gain influence in the world. Think of all those blogs dedicated to movie reviews. They had to start out small at some point and now big Hollywood Blockbusters are using their reviews in advertisements and social media. These blogs show how writing a blog can gain you influence in the world which means people are more likely to trust you and follow what you write. Also, as I said earlier, employers like people who are influential as they can make their business sky rocket. Blogging can also help you build a network with like minded people. Some blogs work along side each other or even with each other and have created strong bonds between people who would never have met otherwise. Also, some blogs can have interviews with people or the like which can mean that with every new post a new person is added to that Blogger's network. Plus, blogging is such an easy thing to do in today's age with sites like Blogger allowing you to log in with your Google Account and just start making posts. It is as simple as that with no computer programming actually needed. As you continue blogging you learn new skills along the way such as inserting links or scheduling posts. Blogs can seem like very daunting things but are actually made by some sites in such a way that most people would be able to easily use it. Blogging can also help you keep up to date with news and information around the world. For instance, if you are writing a technology blog you are keeping up to date with the latest technology and information around the world. Even general blogs can help you keep up to date as when you are searching the internet for writing inspiration you can come across articles and news that may surprise you and influence that post in some way. It can also help your readers keep up to date as well as they can learn about current events while reading their favourite blog. It really is fantastic!

Image Source: http://www.wiziq.com/course/3784-current-affairs-questions-and-answers-2012

Blogs are also great ways to connect with the people you admire. For instance you may write a blog post and tag your idol in it or tweet it out to them and the world. Then they may come across it and read it and actually enjoy it. Suddenly, they have found a connection to you and have shared your blog to all the people who follow them. It is great as suddenly you have a link to the people you have always wanted to meet or talk to. In summary, Blogs really are wonderful things and I encourage you to start one yourself. It really is quick and easy.

Blogging is a wonder of our modern world, see you tomorrow.

Internet Censorship is Wrong

Imagine a world where sites like YouTube and Facebook did not exist. A world where one could not share their thoughts through the click of a mouse, or the touch of a button. This is a world where everything online is censored and the only way to share what you’re really thinking is through word of mouth. We should not be controlling what is posted online. If we do what are we really losing? Culture? Social networks? Jobs?

We live in an age where the online world has become part of our global culture and ingrained into our everyday lives. We can see our culture everyday online; YouTube is a prime example. There are over half a billion channels on YouTube with over 70 hours of video uploaded every minute and it is available in over 60 languages. All the users and videos from all over the world create a vibrant global culture online. The censoring of this site and those like it would mean censoring of the global culture.

What democratic country censors a culture? Such an abhorrent act seems impossible of the western world yet if we were to regulate what people post online this would become a reality. We would lose our global culture due to the possibility of causing offence or alienation. Our Internet would be reduced to something devoid of entertainment. The internet would be the laughing stock of the modern world and our global culture would be lost forever. What do we really stand to lose when we control what is posted online?

The beginning of the control of what is posted online marks the end of Social Networks as we know them.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter would cease to exist. The sheer task of censoring the billion monthly active users on Facebook would mean it would take days for a post to actually go out to friends. People are not going to wait days to tell people what is happening right now. They will begin to stop using these sites and the companies like Facebook and Twitter will not be able to keep up with running costs and will have to shut down. Thousands of jobs would be lost for what?

What do we really stand to gain through controlling what is posted online? Is this insignificant gain important enough to cost thousands their jobs? Can we really bare the guilt associated with mass job loss just to protect our feelings? Thousands of people will have to go home one night and have to explain to their families why they will be no longer working. Thousands of families will struggle to make ends meet. Thousands of relationships will be put under stress, hundreds doomed to end. These jobs not only include the companies like Twitter and Facebook but also the local petrol station and café which rely on the workers coming in for breaks or to refill their cars on the way home from work. What about the local shopping centre that will lose customers? What about the children who will grow up in strained families where tension is always waiting around the corner? How will they cope when their families can no longer afford to pay for their school, hobbies or interests? How is a five or eight year old going to understand why they cannot have what their friends have and the concepts of unemployment? Controlling what is posted online will lead to pointless loss of jobs and will cause an emotional ripple effect.

The censoring of what is posted online will become one of the modern tragedies of our time. If we let this happen what do we stand to lose? Our global culture is surely doomed for extinction and the internet would be set to become the laughing stock of our generation. Then there are the social media networks that would no longer exist and the jobs they caused becoming redundant. Our entire economy would suffer just to protect our fragile feelings. Thousands of families will stand to lose so much more than their feelings if we begin to monitor what is posted online. We should not monitor what is posted online because we stand to lose so much more than hurt feelings if we do.

Image Source: http://www.israeltrade.org.au/israel-eyes-next-generation-internet/

The above was my speech for an oral presentation on the prompt "should we be allowed to post whatever we want online?" I presented this speech yesterday in English. 

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Pressure

Pressure, we all feel it from time to time. Pressure can come in many forms and at many levels. It can affect us in different ways. Pressure can be a bad thing but it can also be a good thing and can motivate us to new levels. However too much pressure is not a good thing. We all experience pressure in our daily-lives and some of us handle it well while others don't. Pressure can come from many different sources as well which can sometimes throw us off guard if we aren't expecting it.

Pressure doesn't have to be bad thing, it can be used to motivate us and push us to better things. If we feel pressured to do something we usually will do it almost right away just to get it over with. This can also mean that we have more time to work on it such that it turns out better than if we felt no pressure at all. A great example of this is a school assignment that we have a short period of time to complete. Some people feel pressured into starting straight away so they can get it over with, this tends to leave the person with a lot more time at the end to go over it and spend time on the presentation of it. Some others would leave it to the last minute and they feel even more pressure and they get over-worked and don't complete the work to as high a standard as the people who started straight away. It just goes to show that even though pressure can be a good thing too much of it is not such a good thing.

It's no secret that we all face pressure in our daily lives and that this pressure comes from many different sources. Pressure can come from school, work, friends or even family. It can come in the form of work (assignments, reports), relationships or even illness. Pressure can change us and can bring out the best in us. For example, we might be feeling the pressure of a family illness. This puts a lot of pressure on a person (trust me, I know) and it can bring out the best of a person. It can show a person the depth of their emotions and the ability of theirs to keep up with the work load and their family issues. Pressure can bring out the best in us even when it comes from a number of sources.

Pressure comes in many forms and can be beneficial and detrimental to us in many ways. It can also come from many different sources and can bring out the best in us. Pressure can teach us things about ourselves we otherwise would not have known.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!