Stop Blogging or Die?

Last Sunday the New York Times ran an article on the perils of blogging, essentially arguing that the stress of blogging can be fatal.  They note that bloggers are under tremendous pressure to constantly crank out a stream of posts, and therefore are ignoring their health and paying the ultimate price as a result.

Are they serious?  Yes, it's unfortunate that we've lost some prominent bloggers in the last few months, including Russell Shaw who's blog I've been reading for years, but to try and draw some sort of link between blogging and ill health strikes me as ludicrous.  The reality, IMHO, is that there have always been workaholics who put their jobs ahead of all else, and in some cases some of them blog, and in some cases, some of them die before their time or experience severe health-related issues.  To pick a few examples out of thousands upon thousands of bloggers strikes me as fear-mongering.

The article does underscore one important issue, as we are now living in an always-connected society where we're always supposed to be available, it is becoming harder and harder for many to create the work-health balance necessary to live a healthy life.  I think there's a lesson here for employers and employees, the always-connected world still requires some period of disconnect to focus on such areas as physical and mental wellness.  It takes some discipline, though.  Perhaps the answer is twitter-enabled aerobic machines so folks will figure out how to blog and workout at the same time?