Transcending time and space

I like what Ann Althouse has to say about blogs. 

[B]logging is just writing, and like other writing, it has aspects that are better than conversation:

It can reach beyond the people you know.

It can reach people in the future, including the people you know.

It can reveal things that cannot come up in ordinary conversation.

It can allow one person to contribute a larger share of the ideas than would be seemly in conversation.

It lets you leap over your immediate physical environment.

If I stuck to face-to-face conversations, I'd be talking to people in Madison, Wisconsin all the time!

Her commenters add: 

[B]logging has made [me] more communicative than I used to be (not that I was shy about talking, being a professor and all...).

I have also found that because of blogging I have likely read more news and commentary on a subject than most people, even my peers. Because, if I am going to argue in public about something, I need to be informed.

Another says

I also find by either writing or reading blogs and their comments, I read more and get exposure to a more diverse range of opinions and insights than I received from reading the same newspapers as everyone else or only talking to nearby folks. The exposure has reformed some of my own opinions -- and in some cases -- helped me become more tolerant of the differing view because of greater understanding of why some people think like they do. In others, it's helped me identify issues that I oppose and that's stimulated me to be a more active opposition voice.


Still Another says
Blogs let you see into cliques that you can't really get at any other way. I have learned far more about libertarians and lawyers, for example, than I could ever find out through my social contacts.

For me, blogging has made me a better writer.  I have learned much more about Catholicism, marketing, doctors, technology  because I read so many blogs by so many smart writers.  It has opened my world immensely.