Blogging Your Way To Self-Discovery
College students are trading the therapist's couch for the computer desktop. The path to finding themselves just might lie in a weblog, some say.

by Christina Capobianco

Love and Lipgloss' Lighthearted Logo

Traditionally, college life and self-discovery go hand in hand. For some, this development occurs via a grande margarita or solitary, candlelit sessions writing journal entries. Recently, however, a rising number of students are taking an unconventional approach to finding themselves: they are doing it through blogging. Blogs are personal websites, updated frequently with first-person commentary, and relevant links to other sites. This technology enables the writer to publish his or her work on the Web instantly, to a hypothetical audience of millions. The result is tens of thousands of college students spouting opinions on President Bush's last speech, critiques of the latest Steven Spielberg flick, and ongoing rants about how Jake has a crush on the girl down the hall.

Twenty-year-old Cassandra Morris is the blogger behind Love and Lipgloss a title that Morris thinks is "cute and fun" and suits the "style and tone" of her writing. Morris's blog includes comments on the daily happenings of her life as a student at New York University and aspiring actress in New York City. The site includes "Chic Clicks" with links to questionnaires like "What drink are you?" and a section called "321 Contact," where readers can respond to the question, "Can ugly parents produce attractive children?" Each journal entry has an attention-grabbing title, such as "Teenybopper Heaven," which tells the tale of the chaos that ensued when a member of the boy-band Dream Street was spotted by a group of girls. Cassandra's lack of enthusiasm for the member of the group that "jumped on the boy band wagon a little too late" left the other girls appalled at her willingness to brake "the rules of the Teenybopper Bible".

Cassandra targets such entries to her age group but hopes they will appeal to all her visitors. However, she doesn't blog just for her readers. "Whenever I blog, it forces me to organize my thoughts and then type them out so other people will be able to make sense of them, which in turn, helps me make sense of my thoughts. This can lead to a kind of subconscious self discovery."

Cassandra's use of her blog as a tool to expose her internal workings is part of a larger trend. Numerous college students are using weblogs as a tool to come to know themselves. Cassandra is part of a New York University Web community made up of almost 150, student bloggers. According to Larry Posner, a psychotherapist who councils young adults, blogging is an exercise in independence. "In the 18-21 population, there are a lot of issues about maturing and being independent." In the transition from the comfort of home to the unfamiliar terrain that is college, "a lot of people get lost," says Posner. He believes that the attraction of blogs may have something to do with that fact that much of the feedback a blogger receives isn't from friends who "try to be nice." When you blog, you're communicating with people with no prior experience with you and therefore, no expectations, he points out. "There's a lot of safety in it." It's this security, he says, that can allow a blogger to be free in a way she can't be with friends or family. In this respect, a blogger's audience is like a therapist, whose virtue is that he or she will tell you things your friends and family would be too polite to mention. Similarly, the writer can share thoughts she wouldn't feel comfortable imparting to people she knows intimately.

This assessment is accurate for Cassandra, at any rate, since her family doesn't know she has a weblog. "Some of the stories are not things you'd tell your mom or dad!" With stories of bra cup-size controversies, tripping around cute guys, drunken soirees in Alphabet City, and getting picked up by teacher's assistants, Cassandra's "Love and Lipgloss" will probably remain a secret from her family. According to Cassandra, it's the sharing with her peers that's important. "Finding yourself...growing up in general...isn't easy. Reading about other people who are experiencing the same difficulties as you can be therapeutic."

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Christina Capobianco is a senior at NYU, double-majoring in drama and journalism.

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