The Emotions of Numbers

I started blogging 239 blog posts ago; or about two and a half years ago. It was great fun to watch the readership grow month after month and I started keeping track of the different countries where my blog was being read. It was really neat to see that it was being read in over 65 different counties by upwards of 75 people a day. Perhaps not earthshaking numbers in terms of the big picture but enough to keep me motivated to keep blogging. Occasionally people would respond with comments and I had 7 followers.

Then it all changed. Some time in the summer of 2012, the blog address changed as St Michael's College launched a new website and I was once again assigned to obscurity. My readership plummeted from 65 - 125 pages a day to 0 - 6 and I was devastated. I was told it was like "shouting in the dark" or "screaming in a storm" and that my readership would return as long as I kept writing. Well I have kept writing but very few people read what I write.

As of this moment, 3 people read my blog yesterday and no one has so far today. I've started pinning my blog posts on a bulletin board outside my office so that at least my students can read my pearls of wisdom but that seems to defeat the purpose of a blog. Perhaps this communication medium has run its course and our culture has tired of on-line titilation. I hope that the other 42 people who blog have better readership than I do otherwise there's an awful lot of wasted energy.