Blogmentation ala Neurological Localization

Admittedly, the subject of this entry is probably an incomprehensible mouthful at first glance, but let me get to the point quickly. When I was in school I used to carry around a bunch of different workbooks/writing pads for each of my school subjects, eg. English, Physics, Chemistry, Math II, etc., because each book was a separate space for a separate purpose. Some people maintain different emails for different purposes, eg. one professional and one personal.

However, even though we can grasp this concept of compartmentalization for other purposes, many people still maintain a one-size-fits-all solution for their digital lives: one blog that covers everything, one Facebook account that lumps together everyone they've known, or even one YouTube account that includes representations from both professional and personal domains. There's something about this approach that seems to be somewhat unwieldly. After all, I wouldn't wear the same clothing regardless of the event, nor would I use the same register of speech, regardless of the audience, so why have we chosen to lump our communication into such an illogical model that doesn't really seem to be adapting to the number of social and professional domains that we live in?

I don't know if I'm first to coin the term, "blogmentation," but I'd like to define my use of it as "compartmentalization and fragmentation of blogging" by individual communicators. This particular 'space' is where I'm gradually coming to focus my thoughts on linguistics and communications that have more of a social/human edge, whereas I have a completely separate blog JC's Tangent where I'm gradually channelling my discussions and reflections on technology. I also have keep a personal blog where my latest creative urges or just my general movements are documented in a reasonably erratic form.

The question for the evolution of this genre/form is how will individuals choose to use blogging in the future, and how will the blogging services and platforms offer these options to them. In this sense, I'm not so concerned about people who know how to set up their own WordPress server, but how the end-user services will be presented and provided. Blogger, for example, allows a single user to set up a number of blogs, but how does the average person use this, if at all?

In the back of my mind there are some ongoing concerns that I have about the companies that are leading us into this age of "mass information management," although because that's a UI (user interface) argument, I think I'll save that for JC's Tangent, instead of LinguisticFX, as I'd really work within the boundaries and disciplines of the 'broader topics' that I've chosen, and to encourage others to "channel down" and experiment with their own experience of 'blogmentation.'