Comments - Why They Need To Stay & My Pet Peeve
There's been a lot of talk about comments lately and I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject. Many bloggers have disabled comments and while I respect their reasons and their blogs I myself want to fight to keep comments around. Comments came first! They existed before all the social media apps and websites and I honestly feel that social media has made people lazy. Society in general continues to grow more and more lazy as technology further develops and everything becomes easier to do. It's so much more convenient to double tap an image on Instagram rather than sharing what's on your mind by leaving a comment on a blog. For some bloggers they feel that the comments are a distraction, which is totally understandable. If they work really hard on a post and there are only two comments visible I see how that can be frustrating (it has happened to me too!). But many of us are connected with with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest so we can be sure there are more than just two people seeing our posts. Our statistics through Google Analytics or whichever platform you use prove that. No one wants to write or read anymore (even Audible lets you listen to books rather than read them for goodness sake!). Everyone would rather "like" an image relating to your post (you can bet that half of them didn't even bother to click on the link and read it) or mention you on Twitter with a few short words. That's not to say that those interactions are worthless. Sometimes tweeting for the day works better than commenting when we have a full schedule. And it's honestly nice to receive a tweet or see how many "likes" or "pins" a post has. I mean, who doesn't feel good about that? Without social media we'd have a lot less interaction and a lot less growth but I don't want to see comments completely ruled out. Our words are the best form of communication and if we take that away we are going to become more and more like robots! The world wants us to become this way. They don't want us to think. They want us to do. They want us to just go along with whatever they throw at us. If you agree with me, I think we can fight together by continuing to comment! Let's use our brains people! God gave them to us for a reason.
And while we are on the topic of comments I'd like to share one of my biggest comment pet peeves: When people only comment on someone's blog after they commented on theirs first. I follow blogs because I am interested in them and I'm going to comment on their blog if I have something to say, a question to ask, a compliment to give, etc. regardless if I receive a comment from them first. Maybe people think it's just polite to comment back every time but to me it sometimes seems fake and it's obvious who is actually following who. Not that I expect anyone to follow me, but please don't feel like you HAVE to visit and leave me a comment just because I did. I want you to want to visit my blog. I don't want you to visit me because you feel you have to and I don't want your comment to be forced.
My friends Stephanie and Allie also shared about commenting, social media, whether or not you should reply to a comment on your own blog, etc and they are both great reads! I highly suggest checking them out:
Blogging Etiquette - Comments
With that said I want you all to know I truly appreciate when you take the time to leave a comment, when you send me a tweet and when you "like" or "pin" my posts. They make me smile :)