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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about electronic media in general and the act of blogging in particular.

I grew up watching a lot of TV, and still watch a fair bit, although having PVR (the Canadian version of Tivo) has changed my viewing habits considerably. In my working life, I was literally joined to technology at the hip and always struggled to avoid the condition of absent presence that was becoming so prevalent in many of my co-workers. You, know, where someone can’t manage a two-minute conversation without checking the Blackberry or taking a call? When I started my gig as an at-home dad, it took me a good month to wean myself from checking emails and news alerts on my Blackberry.

I listened to an interesting audio post on NPR this week that was all about the impact of technology on our brains. The journalist being interviewed has written a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the dangers of using cell phones while blogging. In the interview, he talked a lot about how scatterbrained we’ve all become as a result of all the multitasking we try to do with all the various gadgets we like to use. He actually pointed out that our human brains are incapable of thinking about two different things at one time. And as I think about whether I’ll replace my outdated and recently mislocated Blackberry with a new smartphone, I’m also asking myself whether parents who rely too heavily on gadgets and technology are able to give their kids the attention that they need. Let’s face it, parenting is a considerably more complicated activity than driving.

I read another blog post recently about how to write a successful daddy blog. One of the tips was to write daily. Now that I’ve been blogging for a little while, I’ve noticed a couple of things. For one, it’s not always easy to balance writing regularly with caring for my kids properly — even though I only post once or twice a week. It’s not just the writing that takes time — it’s also promoting posts through Twitter and Facebook. And attempting to engage and commune with other bloggers, blog followers and tweeps. Becoming part of an online community — like any community — takes time and commitment. But I question whether it should be at the expense of my commitment to my kids or my relationships with family and friends. If my kids are tugging at my arm for attention, or watching three straight hours of TV while I perfect my latest blog post, then I’m not focusing on the right things at work.

Another recent comment-inducing blog post at a site called Fatherfolk challenged revolutionary dad bloggers (stay-at-home and otherwise) to rise above simply writing about the mundane (my word) activities of parenting and write about all of the other important things they do as responsible, engaged citizens (again, I’m paraphrasing). To some extent, I try to do that. But to do it every day would actually heavily limit my ability to actually do the “revolutionary” things that I’m supposed to be writing about — the most important of which is actually being an involved parent.

At the same time, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of parents who are on Twitter 24-7. The more time I spend on Twitter, the more I understand its attraction. As easily as it can be a complete waste of time, Twitter can help you create a real network of like-or-not-so-like-minded people and can be a conduit to all kinds of useful and interesting information. The more effort you put in, the more you get back. And that’s all well and good for the workplace, or for building a company or brand, but for it leaves me wondering how much attention hard core parent twitterers have left for their kids.

Kids, in my view and experience, need fairly constant attention, or at the least, supervision. I was just reading a chapter in Nurture Shock about language acquisition. According to the book, and recent research, very young kids acquire language much faster if we are responsive as parents, answering back, mimicking them, etc. If our typical response is “Just a minute, I need to finish this tweet,” that doesn’t really cut it.

I guess at the core of this ramble is the question “Why do you do it?”  Why do you blog? Why do you tweet? Why do you feel a need to broadcast your experiences to an audience? For me, I blog because writing gives me a creative outlet and enables me to process the sometimes solitary experience of being an at-home dad. I love to write and love the sense of community that comes with building an audience of followers and co-bloggers.  But my sanity doesn’t require that I write a daily post. It actually requires me to log off more than I’m logged on.

As I read and follow other at-home parents who blog and tweet more prolifically than I, I’m curious about how and why they do it. How much time a day do you spend on Twitter? How often do you blog? How do you balance your relationships with your kids, your spouse, and your social networking apps? How do you manage to live a real life and broadcast it to the world at the same time. What do you get out of it? Feel free to comment. If there’s one thing we bloggers love, it’s getting comments.

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