from all walks of life, but when it comes to blogging,
teen writers are truly on the cutting edge of the
movement. Because today's teenagers are the first
generation of people to have grown up using the
internet at every stage of their development, many
adolescents have a seemingly innate sense of how to use
web technology to express their innermost thoughts and
ideas. Older writers often experience a kind of learning
curve when they begin to blog, but many young people
find that using a word processor and blogging software
feels more natural and direct a mode of communication
than writing in a diary ever could.
One of the reasons why blogs have undergone a kind of
explosion in the teen community and are growing by
leaps and bounds is the fact that they provide a unique
mixture of visibility and anonymity. A teenager can
invite friends and peers to read his or her blog with a
simple email, thereby winning attention or possibly
even praise. Of course, with visibility usually comes the
possibility of embarrassment, but the fact that it is
possible to blog anonymously with an invented handle
or nickname negates a lot of the potential for
humiliation. Many a blogging teen lives in fear that a
parent or guardian will discover his or her blog, but by
publishing under an alias a teenager can spill his or her
secrets without fear of being traced.
Outside the world of blogging, teen writers often have
very limited opportunities to be published. Magazines
and journals are often reticent to publish young writers
who may not have as much credibility as older writers
with a lot of experience and extensive credits to their
names. This can discourage adolescents from writing or
from seeking chances to publish their work. By
blogging, young people can begin to gain a following of
readers without first having to win the attention and
support of an editor or publisher who may not be very
interested in teenaged authors.
Between the fact that blogs provide young people with a
chance to exercise their impressive technical aptitude,
to gain visibility without compromising privacy, and to
build a readership for their writing without having to
jump through the traditional hoops of the publishing
industry, it is little wonder that are so many teenagers
with blogs. For some teenagers, blogging is even a very
social endeavor that allows them to meet people with
similar interests from all over the world. Many a
blogging teen has discovered that having a weblog on
the internet is a great way to explore self-expression
and, often, to win positive feedback from new friends.
