Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Day 5 Observation (9/23/08)

It’s my last day observing the cats and kittens blog, and it’s actually kind of weird because I feel like I’m a part of the group. Even though I don’t post, I feel like because I have been checking in every day that I have become sort of used to doing it. Anyway, today I looked to see which poster’s names looked familiar to see if people are regulars or if people just checked in randomly. It seems to be there are a few people who come in every day, but at the same time I noticed that there are also people who just stop by once in a while. Today there were postings about which kinds of foods to feed the cats, handling children around the pets, and just general stuff like that. One woman who was posting said she has 53 cats- wow, now that is crazy!

I’m still surprised though that there are 5,000+ members in the group because I definitely do not think more than 20 or 25 posted in the time I have been looking so far, but maybe people join but never leave when they are no longer interested, or perhaps people like to just come and read other postings.

I’m glad I decided to do this cats blog instead of the politics one, because it was fun to see how people interacted and bonded with each other over their pets. It’s amazing how animals can help people come together and form friendships. I think that’s what made this group unique because in other discussion forums and groups, it’s more about arguing and proving points, but in this one it was the opposite, it was about helping others, sharing stories and learning.

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