Digital Journaling

Day 19 of #WinterABC2022

Hi there gorgeous human being. Thank you for clicking and visiting my corner of the interweb. Oldies, welcome back. Newbies hello and welcome! I hope you stay. I talk a lot so you will definitely enjoy my chats.

Quick life update, half of my ceiling fell through in my bedroom. When they tried to repair it, the whole ceiling fell through. It has been a busy week of bundling up furniture, moving it up and down for the maintenance guys to fix. I had so many ideas for last’s week challenge with barely any time. I guess we will save those for later. For now, I have quit dusting my books and clothes and will go back to that after writing this blog. You have no idea the amount of dust in your ceiling, pray it never gives up like mine…..

Back to the business of the day.

We are now in the final week of the Afro bloggers’ #WinterABC2022 Blogging Challenge and the theme for this week is Innovation. We were tasked to think outside the box and think without the box. I jokingly said this sounds more like a riddle but than a straightforward task but I love me a good challenge. I guess the Afro bloggers team wanted us to think beyond the obvious. If you are reading this shout out to you guys!

I kickstart this week with something light and that is digital journals.

The act of journaling dates way back than we would assume. If you are Christian , for example, you would know each book was written by a different person. That was a form of journaling the events of the time. The same applies to any religion that you follow. I just used Christianity because it is the one religion that I am most familiar with and you can correct me if I am wrong.

Another example would be Shakespeare, although technically he was just writing at that time, but I would argue that he was also journaling his poetic and theatrical thoughts. All the poems and plays from him that we read were a result of journaling. Fast forward to the 2oth century. Journaling seemed to be more popular than it is now. I personally would argue it was because people had no internet. We will touch on this in a minute, but diaries and journals were much more popular than they are right now.

I remember tweeting that despite our (African) parents having limited access to psychologists they journaled which is a form of narrative therapy. I wouldn’t say they did not need psychologists, but they had means to manage their mental health. If you journal, this is something you might have picked up. They journaled their thoughts, feelings, frustrations, fears, etc. This is something that my generation doesn’t really do at the scale of our parents’ generation.

However, people like me EXIST, who despite not living in the diary generation just happened to fall in love with journaling. I started journaling seriously in 2020. As a private person ( and careless person) I was wary of keeping a physical journal and opted for a password protected journal I found on Google Store called “ Life Diary”. I am sure it’s not only my generation that has switched to digital journals and let’s explore why they are innovative.

1. PRIVACY

I think this is a point that has already been made. On a surface level, I think digital journals offer way more privacy than diaries and journals could offer. Even if someone can hold your phone, without the password, they cannot access your most intimate thoughts. However, I would be wary to completely trust apps, I do not have the range to unpack privacy lawsuits that have happened recently as some apps have been accused of basically spying on people. At a more secondary level, your thoughts could be stored somewhere in a database and God knows who can access them haha.

Despite that, digital journals offer more privacy, seriously download one, today! I know I scared you but download one. Today!

Next point

2. SAFE KEEPING

The journaling app that I mentioned earlier, allows you to backup all your entries in case you lose your phone. Comparatively, digital journals would trump diaries and physical diaries in this aspect. I can imagine leaving your journal at a park, on the train or at the library. This would mean all your precious memories could be accessed by anyone or worse, be gone forever.

Another advantage of digital journals is that unlike ink, your journal cannot be damaged. I can picture someone pouring coffee or a drop of soup landing on one of your precious pages. Digital journals on the other hand, are not affected by this. So please, download one, today! Seriously, do the right thing!

If you want to keep it old school, you can print them out and keep a file of your journal entries. It’s honestly up to you.

 Now let’s get serious for a minute…

In my opinion, digital journaling has transcended beyond writing in a private space especially in the age of social media. Do you remember the point I made earlier about people not journaling because of the internet? We are now addressing that. I believe social media is making people journal publicly. Tweeting for example has become a form of journaling. I see a lot of people on twitter whose content is just tweeting their day-to-day thoughts. My argument is that without these social media accounts, these people would be putting these thoughts in a physical journal.

On this basis, would it be far fetched to see social media as a form of digital journaling? I think it’s not far-fetched. What we are witnessing is journaling evolving from something that was intimate and private to something that is done in a public space i.e on social media. The latest buzz word for this is oversharing. I also tend to overshare sometimes (hides).

Can I take it up a notch?

Instagram. Posting pictures on the internet is another way of digital journaling. Think of it this way. If you went to see a Beyonce and Jay-Z concert ( like I did, haha small brag) who would believe you unless if you have that snap on your Instagram account or even in your phone? Besides people, wouldn’t you want to look back at some of your happy memories while browsing through your social media accounts? I think it’s time we see posting pictures as a form of digital journaling.

In addition, blogging is another form of digital journaling. As bloggers and writers, the internet has given us space to write down our opinions and share them with friends, family and our virtual buddies that we do not know or even meet. That’s the beauty of the internet ( thank you wordpress).

So ladies, gentlemen and non-binaries. Welcome to my digital journal. We will unpack this more in the future.

Thank you for reading and see you soon!