Blog Survey: Summary of Findings

Fernanda Viégas, a graduate student in the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, published Blog Survey: Summary of Findings which contained results such as

1. "the great majority of bloggers identify themselves on their sites: 55% of respondents provide their real names on their blogs; another 20% provide some variant of the real name (first name only, first name and initial of surname, a pseudonym friends would know, etc.)"
   
   
2. "36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs"
   
   
3. "the frequency with which a blogger writes highly personal things is positively and significantly correlated to how often they get in trouble because of their postings; (r = 0.3, p < 0.01); generally speaking, people have gotten in trouble both with friends and family as well as employers."
   

(now there's a 'duh' ...)

Somehow (n.b. this isn't the slant or gist of the study) bloggers who may always be so careful not to spill online information in chatrooms and Usenet newsgroups forget when they are blogging that anyone and everyone can read what they have to say.

... including Aunt Ethel, who may not want you blogging about the affair she never told Uncle Wilbur about.