Why there aren’t psychology blogs
This comment thread at unfogged was what sparked my musings about the absence of psychology in blogging, and its further development has given me an idea about why there’s a lack. I think it’s because for really helpful advice to be taken and given, you have to have a good, close relationship with the person or people you’re asking advice from. And because of the chicken-egg problem, a blog focusing on personal advice won’t be able to garner the trust and familiarity needed to take off. Plus, many blogs act as strong demographic selectors on their commenters, and people in similar life situations and of similar intellectual proclivities are going to be able to give better advice to each other than people with less in common. A more narrowly focused, non-ideological blog certainly wouldn’t do that as strongly. And the idea of the Unfogged post, of encouraging commenters, even regular ones, to post with a different pseudonym whenever they want to contribute an anecdote or ask a question that they don’t want associated with their main pseud for some reason, is a good one. People have already occasionally done this at Unfogged (and do it at other blogs, I’m sure,) but the practice was rare enough to not rise to the status of convention, and thus there was a small barrier that held back a considerable number people from asking advice over the months. (”Over the months”—heh, it’s internet time nowadays, baby!)
