HW 5 B : Problems through blogging

When reading “I Blog, Therefore I Am”, I had many questions about certain parts of the reading. The paragraph that I had the most trouble understanding was on page 249. David Kline suggests that the number of people attending therapy sessions is declining because the internet is opening up new ways to talk about your problems through blogging. He claims that “ one must assume that the more deliberatively people appraise and document their lives, the more purposefully those lives will be lived.” Kline insists that when people are talking to other people about their problems they will come together to overcome them. I have a hard time understanding where he is coming from in stating this. Blogging today may be a way for people to talk to others about their ongoing problems, but I do not believe that it is always a healthy way to go about it. Take for example the blogging websites about suicide; people who are depressed talking to other people who are depressed can never lead to a positive outcome. In many cases families end up finding out after the matter that their child was going through depression because instead of going for professional help they joined a community of people feeling the same way they were and ended up ending their lives. Although blogging communities may be a good way for some people to talk about their problems, I do not by any means believe that it is a better place to go to than professional help.