The Good and Bad of the Internet

Today has been one of those days whereby both the good and bad of the Internet has become very apparent to me.

The Independent online has an article about mummy bloggers (see here for the full article), which IMVHO states that all new mums are bored, lonely and sad and need their blogs to reach out and give them something to do over the lonely nights. Well for one thing I don’t fit into that very tight stereotype, thank you very much.

Yes I am a blogger (relatively new), a mummy and a woman, but I don’t blog because I have bugger all else to do. I am doing this as a record of my time with my children, after a nasty period of our lives with my health. I am not lonely or board or do I promise to review a product.

I am not in it for the glamour, the recognition or to get published. I am not a professional writer or journalist. So if you are here expecting a wonderful line of wit and prose, well I think you are in the wrong house my friend.

If you are here to be a fly on my wall, a voyeur in to my daily life and the minutia that make everything worthwhile, then this is the place for you. As I state in my blogger header. It is always busy, but not always interesting.

It is a growing phenomenon in the UK. The US is way ahead of us in the mommy blogger stakes, but I have family all over the UK and this enables me to keep in touch with then all on the day to day things that my boys and I do. It is bringing us closer together.

I am not against product reviews on websites, in fact I like to hear peoples opinions of things and as long as I am aware that it is a review based on a freebie then I am totally fine about it. I do not want to be mistaken and thing that it is a recommendation based on a purchase when it isn’t.

I am not going to stop saying we have fad fun with a game I have purchased or refuse a product to review. What I will say is that I will state the fact that I have been asked to review something if that is the case. I am going to do it with integrity!!!

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I also have said that I love a couple of websites for mums or parents and one of these sites Mumsnet is embroiled in a rather large discussion about the fact that the Daily Mail has a column on-line about this week on Mumsnet (over here for this one). Basically it just seems to cut and paste opinions and quote direct from the posts. Now this really gets my goat. It is shoddy journalism, all bread and no filling.

Fine the Ham story was all over the Internet, BBC and mumsnet, but why couldn’t the mail have got their own quotes, asked some mums themselves rather than cut and paste them direct from a chatroom?

Now I understand that the Internet is public and mumsnet is a public forum, but what is there to stop people just taking anything and copying it, completely out of context? Yes I post there, but under a suedonim, which I change.

It has made me now aware of what I post, of the fact that it is there for anyone to see, for many, many years to come. I am responsible for the words I use in cyberspace, just as I am in real life. They can hurt, they can wound, they can bring joy, bring a smile to a face and record our lives. Am I going to change the way I use the internet? At the moment no, but I am going to keep a close eye on things and see how they progress.