This is very scary.
It was scary enough when we started hearing news of gamers dying from gaming too much.
But news of bloggers dying from blogging too much is scarier because there are many more bloggers than gamers in the world.
It’s scarier for me because I’m both a blogger and a gamer.
But don’t worry. I’m not about to die from either because I’m not at risk. I will talk about that later, but here’s the news first.
Blogged Out
Mon, Apr 07, 2008
The Straits TimesSAN FRANCISCO – THEY work long hours, often to the point of exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece – not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing workforce of homeoffice labourers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
In the last few months, two of them have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Florida, Mr Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects, died at 60 of a heart attack.
In December, another technology blogger, Mr Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Mr Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
Read the rest of the article here.
More and more companies are hiring bloggers these days. There’s a crazily significant increase in the number of blogging jobs in recruitment sites today from, say, a year or two ago.
It makes me wonder why some bloggers, if they’re able to help their employers generate hundreds of thousands of hits with their content, don’t just start their own blogs.
I mean, if you have the words and the stories, blogging can be one of the most lucrative business ventures at virtually no cost. Domain name and web hosting fees are negligible costs. Anyone can set up a blog.
So, if you’re going to write for someone, why not write for yourself??
If you’re going to die, might as well die for your own cause.
Okay, but I’m sure I know nuts about the business. If I do, I’d be raking in the millions from blogging already. As it is, I’m only raking in the tens. Hahaha.
Which is why I’m not at risk of death by blogging.
I blog for myself, about my own life. I have no deadlines (only self-imposed ones) and I don’t worry about people scooping my news because I make my own news.
I suppose that explains why I’m not making millions from blogging. But I really don’t want to die from blogging. Blogging shouldn’t be stressful. I write only stuff I enjoy writing (most of the time). If that doesn’t make money, too bad.
As for death by gaming, my days of 48-hour gaming sprees are gone. I’m more sensible now, thank goodness. (But I’m not claiming that I’m entirely sensible. I still do stupid things every so often.)
The Goonfather was the one who showed me the blogger death article. He linked it to me in MSN.
After reading it, I told him, “Good story.”
“Why?” he asked.
“What why?” I asked back.
“I show you to tell you not to blog until keow,” he said.
(Keow is the Hokkien word for “die”.)
“Hahaha. Stupid,” I said. “I’m going to blog about it.”
“…”
Anyway, I don’t think blogger deaths are going to happen in Singapore. Only foreigners do things to such extreme. Singaporeans only mess up the MRT tracks. That is the real scary news in Singapore. But the authorities say not to sensationalise it, so I’m not going to talk about it.
Well, just… take it easy, I guess.
Well, if uzyn introduces monthly “whose ping is it” we might just see a few casualties (probably you, ironicgamer and me)
Scary!
I do play games but I don’t play long hours like 48 hours (that’s too much!), I could only play max. of 3-8 hours for one day, more than that could actually make me sleepy.
What I think about blogging, it’s just one of my hobbies to pass time and just a storage of my thoughts in some news and other stuff.
I do hope more readers could read my blog, but I tend to take it easy. It really just no meaning to it, if blogging actually stress me out!
It’s also a good way to improve my English writings. =P
@arzhou
Agree.
I remembered I only slept like some winks during my RPG sessions years ago. FF, Chrono Trigger etc.
Now I sleep a lot and also blog a lot but there are much more impt stuff than blogging in your life.
These guy died from more than just blogging. Their eating habits were very bad and they had other stress factors that contributed to it.
MSN/MSNBC is spinning the story to make it look like blogging is the cause, when really blogging was these guys only release.
This writer tried to make a connection between blogging and clogged arteries and only made himself look crazy. Even the medical field here is saying this writer is making a huge stretch.
Don’t worry. Blogging doesn’t cause heart attacks.
those freaking inconsiderate mrt track jumpers better pray hard that they die successfully. if not they’re so gonna be condemned.
吃的好，睡的好，玩得好，blog 的好，生活更好
Hahahaha Long Live Queen Sheylara~
when I first read the title, I thought it’s suicide be due to not being able to handle the stress from stupid nasty comments. :P
Wow, I feel sorry for those people that died for blogging.
I know people that play games alot are at danger (I play games WAY to much and nothing has happened yet ;)).
Just think if you happened to be a new blogger that was reviewing games :)
i was there lah when he jumped. damn.. stupid?? i should say. he was still alive then the train run over him. can still hear him shout. must have been a slow death. it happened about short before 8 and was only pronounced dead by 8.30. can imagine?
plus, eternal disruption on my way to work… haiz…… and no one knows why he did it……
I think the fact that they died was more due to unhealthy habits than just blogging alone la.
blogging is just incidental. as more and more people start blogging, death rate will still be 100%.
I blog, then I go jog, then i come back, shower, and blog again.. then i suddenly die. What would I have died of?
Blog? Jog? Starvation?
Hey, I read these “blogger dies from blogging” news articles, I thought they were an April Fool’s joke… :D
I’m pretty sure that you don’t blog enough to make it dangerous, but please don’t stop :oP
This sounds like a great headline from a humor magazine, LOL. Are sure this wasn’t a post meant for April Fools day? It’s like “2 people die from trying to eat 3 meals a day”
arzhou: Hahaha. Monthly is not enough to kill us… we are well-trained, okay?!! Maybe daily will do us in, though… lol.
Hui Hui aka Tara: Depends on what game you play lah. If you play the better MMORPGs… time just flies. 12 hours will feel like nothing! lol.
Yeah, blogging is a great way to improve one’s writing and sort out one’s thoughts at the same time!
Buny: Well, the bloggers who died were professional bloggers. So I guess blogging was the most important thing in their lives.
Mike M: You have a point there. But then, maybe blogging contributed the most stress and perhaps was also the cause of their bad eating and sleeping habits, so maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to blame the death on blogging?
shin: Pretty harsh words there. I’d guess it’d be pretty hard not to die after being hit or run over by a train.
Ashtar83: Haha. Okay. Thanks for your well wishes. :P
uglyfatchick: lol. Someone would have to be seriously out of whack to kill himself over nasty comments.
Snat: Haha. Well, take it easy with the gaming! lol, easier said than done, though, I know!! :P
musxzart: Wah! Seriously?? You witnessed the… incident? Er… why didn’t you blog about it?
vinyarb: That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that the obssession with blogging could have caused unhealthy habits. Like when I was addicted to gaming, I just ate junk food all day or didn’t eat at all, slept very little or not at all, all because I just wanted to spend every second I had on gaming. :P
modchip: Really? Sounds too far-fetched for you, huh? Well, check out The Darwin Awards, listing true accounts of the strangest and stupidest deaths in the history of mankind.
Jesta: Haha. I guess not. :P I would stop blogging if I had to spend 24 hours a day on it because then I would hate it. :P
Daryl Tay: Haha. Your example title is funnier. Mine isn’t that funny mah. It’s a fact!! lol.
It’s a huge stretch to blame a heart attack on blogging considering these are 3 people out of the 100 million+ who blog.
With that rational, we could say that we all of victims of the holocaust because the smoke that filled the air entered our lungs and made breathing harder.
It’s a stretch. They we eating badly and living badly long before they were ever blogging. Blogging just made it easier to progress the damage they had already done. Look at their ages. They were over the hill so to speak. It was going to happen. MSNBC made a story out of these guys keeling over in front of their computers.
What about technology workers? They spend 80% of their lives working on computers. It that not basically the same thing?
Blogging doesn’t cause heart attacks. Bad living and bad choices do.
Haha
True! I used to be like that play like whole day non-stop, but now cannot already, too ‘old’ for that. =X
Hey hey hey, thanks for the link, I just browsed it for a while and it looks very very interesting.. will keep me busy for a while. :D
Mike M: Well, that’s true, the victims are pretty old to begin with. Haha.
Hui Hui aka Tara: Hehe… good for you. I think you “grew up” and became sensible faster than me. :P
modchip: No problem! ;)
Just to back up what I am saying :)
Read this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348055,00.html
Should we say to gamers “Don’t play video games anymore because you might go crazy a beat your child to death with the controller”?
Not at all. I am NOT giving up gaming for anything!! HA
I thought this was a joke until I read about a similar report in New York Times (In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop). :-p
Still, this is for professional bloggers who work 24/7 – not any casual blogger. Just remember to exercise. :-)
ClappingTrees: I think the term blogger is used too loosely. Everyone who owns a blog calls himself a blogger (which isn’t wrong, technically). But how do we differentiate between professional bloggers and casual bloggers? Heh.
In this day in age, we are all bloggers. Take me for instance. I have commented on this blog and average of 45 times a month (sorry modchip, I got you beat my friend). If you add all my comments up, they would actually make 3 or 4 posts by blogging standards.
(Stay with me here)
So, that in itself would make me a “comment blogger” because I comment so much.
How”s that for twisted logic?
Damn I can’t write good anymore. That last comment was just awful!
i guess only in US do people blog until they die.
i guess only blogs that actually make lots of money for their authors actually endanger the lives of their authors with all the deadlines to meet, one after another.
I suppose you’re right! :)