N – Blog till you drop

Two fatal heart attacks in the United States may have been a result of stress caused by excessive blogging, an article in the New York Times suggests. Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, and mental health problems. Bloggers are “toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock internet economy that demands a steady stream of news and comment,” the article says. In some sectors blogging is highly competitive. Financial rewards are often low and based on the number of posts written or the hits an entry gets. Some journalists have been fired for not meeting hits targets. (www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html and http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/2008/04/is_writing_this_blog_killing_m.html)