Over the summer break I have been using Bloglines as an experiment in RSS or aggregation (or "dynamic content", "shields you from the confusion", "online news to be fresh", blah blah as they tell me). It is, as they write on the site many times, "FREE". It does also "save time" as I only go to the blogs on the list that have been updated since I last looked (usually 4 or 5 a day). However, I am also missing out on a lot. In fact it is the internet equivalent of Intensive Care on a liquid diet.
I listed 17 blogs on my site feed. Some of these were group blogs so I was checking my list whenever I logged on, as the tray bar icon always has the red button on, saying that one blog at least had been updated. So I had the feeling of reading blogs, funneling information, tasting life outside my own "morphic field". But no! I was actually in a furrow, a chreode. I read the same few blogs as they always had something new to read, but as I did not think to update the list (too busy reading) I lost contact with other blogs I used to read only occasionally. Before this summer I just browsed blogs, letting accident take me where it will. In the last few weeks I have been going around and around the same 17 blogs.
I think I need to stop looking at my feed and just wander. I like confusion...it feels like freedom.
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