(April 8, 2005) — It’s been a long day at school. You just finished the math test you stayed up all night studying for and you just want to relax. What do you do? You run home, go on the Internet and start looking at your friends’ blogs to hear the latest bit of gossip or to simply see what is happening in your friend’s life. Blogs—short for web logs—are forums in which people of various ages can post comments about either their daily lives or their opinions and views on different subject matter. “It’s so easy to get sucked into reading xangas and viewing people’s myspace,” said senior Ciba Mohamed. “One xanga connects me to another one and another one and next you know, I’ve spent an hour on the site.” Blogs such as xanga and myspace have become popular among high school students. Even clubs at our school, such as Key Club, have created a xanga to share their experiences in the club as well as inform people of upcoming events. People post on blogs for various reasons. According to senior Illya Williams, she posts to “let off steam” and just write whatever her “heart desires.” “Blogs are a nice was to express your thoughts, share memories and keep pictures and things for you and your friends to later watch,” said senior Harish Venkitramanan, a xanga user. Larry Pryor, a professor at USC who teaches online writing and reporting, blogs are “the most powerful form on communication [that] deserve a lot of respect and study.” And maybe it’s not getting all the respect that Pryor believes it ought to, but it sure is getting a lot of people to study it. Attorney Susan Seager says that she believes blogging has potential of causing harm to people. She said people need to be aware that they can get sued for posting blogs on the Internet. While blogging is protected by the first amendment, if a person writes something that is libelous, something that defaces another individual or invades their privacy, he or she can be sued. “[For students,] the likelihood of being sued is small because you’re writing about your friends,” said Seager. However, she said that students should consider the issue when posting things on the Internet. Nothing, however, stops people from blogging. According to Technorati.com , a new blog is created in the world every 5.8 seconds and more than 3 blogs are updated every second. This means that viewers constantly have a wide variety of new things to read about. While most high school students stick to reading their friend’s personal blogs, some choose to read political blogs. However, people question the validity of these blogs as any person can post their comments about an issue. According to Pryor, putting seals of approval on blog sites is currently being considered. Some believe that blogs will soon oust newspapers. According to L.A. Times reporter Jim Rainey, blogs are a form of competition for newspapers, but they have some notable differences. “Blogs are fast, newspapers slow; blogs provide advocacy, newspapers information. Blogs are [the] generics, newspapers the brand names. Blogs [are] free-form, newspapers are edited,” said Rainey. Whether people are for or against blogs, they are emerging quickly and becoming another form on communication for people from all over the world. Although the future for blogs is uncertain, as of right now, blogs are both powerful and popular.