Original studyPsychreg Journal of Psychology, 2018Read the paper →
Millions of people now turn to blogs for advice on stress, relationships and mental health rather than to textbooks or journals. Writers can reach readers quickly and in a personal voice. A paper argues that this makes blogs a powerful way to share psychology with the public, and that they deserve study in their own right.
The paper appears in Psychreg Journal of Psychology and was written by the journal’s editor. It reviews earlier research on blogging and gives an overview of popular blogs in psychology and related fields. It does not report new data.
The paper notes that blogging is generally thought to have started in 1994, and that by 2017 there were more than 1.8 billion websites. Blogs have grown from online diaries into stores of useful information on almost every subject.
The paper splits psychology blogs into two broad groups. Academic blogs are aimed at researchers and draw on the latest studies in scholarly journals. General blogs are often run by people without formal training in psychology and may lean towards popular psychology.
Earlier research suggests blogging may be good for mental health. One field experiment with teenagers who had social and emotional difficulties found that those who kept a blog for 10 weeks improved on all measures, including self-esteem. Those who wrote about their difficulties on blogs open to comments gained the most, and the gains held two months later.
Another survey of 212 bloggers found that ease of use, enjoyment and the wish to share knowledge shaped people’s attitude to blogging. A sense of belonging to a community, together with that attitude, predicted whether people planned to keep blogging.
The paper proposes a new field called blog psychology. This would apply psychological principles and research to understand how people read and run blogs, and how to increase the benefits readers gain. It might draw on studies of perception, thinking, personal growth and online behaviour.
The paper has clear limits. It is a review and proposal rather than a study, and the case for a new field rests on a small number of earlier findings. It also comes from the founder of a psychology blog, which readers may want to bear in mind.
Cyberpsychology already studies how people behave online. This paper argues that blogs, with their speed, range and personal tone, are a distinct part of that world and worth closer attention from psychologists.
