There’s nothing quite as disappointing and isolating as being the only person commenting on a given forum on the Internet. Therefore, I made a point of trying to comment on posts that already had comments on them. This way, it felt more like an active conversation between myself, the blogger, and the other commenter, as opposed to a single awkward attempt at interaction, most likely lost in the void. Unfortunately, other commenters were few and far between. For the most part, the class blogs I perused were barren of activity, both on the author’s part and on the part of their readers.
Therefore, (to more directly answer the question): 2 out of the 3 comments I made were the only comments on that particular post.
Yes; Alex and Isaac I knew well already, and I had met Rose a few times outside of class (mostly in conjunction with Isaac). As would be expected, I purposefully commented on these people’s blogs for several reasons: a) I knew them, and I felt more comfortable commenting on their blogs as opposed to the blogs of complete strangers, and b) all of their blogs were Wordpress blogs. Commenting on Wordpress was simple and easy. Tumblr blogs have no commenting system, which made it impossible to use many of the class blogs for this assignment.
I do not believe that blogs and commenting are an effective way to communicate in a class setting. As I’ve already pointed out, many blogs do not have a way to comment, which poses a pretty substantial problem. Secondly, and more importantly, discussions on forums/blogs/commenting systems will inevitably fail due to their nature. Several crucial elements of a good, hearty discussion simply cannot take place online, in text form. Discussions online are staggered, which is to say, you have to wait for someone to type out their response before you can read it; you don’t receive it real-time. In person, discussions involve quick thinking, quick responses, and the ability to interject or add in at any point. If you’re just exchanging huge chucks of text back and forth, it feels artificial and stunted. Sitting and waiting, alone, staring at a computer screen, waiting for the next essay of a reply to appear is boring and doesn’t inspire academic or intellectual interaction.
Even more frustrating is the “invisible timer” when typing out a response on a forum. Let’s assume you’re participating in a discussion online, and let’s assume you have a really great point to make. You sit there, taking the time to articulately type out your response, correct typos, look it over for mistakes, etc… Then, once you’re ready to post it, you see that several other people have commented in the meantime, and your point is no longer relevant, or someone else has made it, or the conversation has moved past the topic you were responding to. There was a window of opportunity for your comment, but that window had an invisible timer, and (sadly, as it often does in these situations) it ran out before you had your chance.
In the real world, this problem doesn’t happen. Maybe the conversation will change, or move on, or render your point irrelevant, but it won’t be a surprise. You will be involved, real-time, in the conversation’s progression.