Blogger Decides

Years ago when I began blogging, I would spend time clicking on “Next Blog” to pass time. I found many interesting sites and people. Then a while ago, Blogger decided to help us “blog browsers” by choosing which sites would interest us. It’s a little like Net Flix, using your past choices as criteria, suggesting movies you may enjoy. It is nice that I don’t have to wade through foreign language posts (although with the Bing translator I may find something interesting written in Arabic), and I’m no longer shocked with explicit photos when blog browsing.

I can’t figure out the logic behind their offerings when I’m browsing. There have been times when I’m taken to site after site dealing with autistic children or sites written by cancer patients and/or their caretakers. I don’t think I have ever posted about autism, and I think I only mentioned cancer briefly when my brother was dying. I think that was in my first blog. I have never been taken to a site discussing the latest mystery novel, or needlework, or television programs, or humor, or blogs written by people in my age group, or the state of the world in general. Those are the things that interest me.

The worst thing is there seems to be no way of breaking the chain of posts selected by Blogger. As a result, I don’t blog browse any more by clicking on “Next Blog.” As I said, there are good aspects to the service, but if Blogger is going to decide the blogs I’m going to read, they should allow me to choose the type of blogs I would like to browse.

On another note, I read the other day that blogging has become a vehicle for those of us who are more life experienced (that’s my term; I think the term I read was “older” people which means “old” people). I noticed a few years ago that the number of blogs written by teenagers discussing music and teen angst disappeared almost overnight. That must have been when Face Book and My Space began. I guess “blogging” has become one more sign of aging along with gray hair and wrinkles.