This article is good news for us bloggers, I can not wait for the next study to come out saying more on health effects of blogging. Especially, Real Estate can be a lonely profession and I do say that the Blogging has really made me feel very close to many in Active Rain.

I am just waiting for the show me the money side effects of Blogging. I already have many associates that I can refer my friends to when they talk about moving to another state and feel confident that they will be in good hands, at least if my blogging friends are as professional and knowledgeable as they appear.

Anyway,this is from my dear bloggin mentor Kevin Boer, I found this article on his 3 Oceansrealestateblog.com and he told us about it this morning. So enjoy! check out domus consulting group.com if you are thinking of starting a local blog and want to get up high in the ranks of google for your community.

March 3, 2008-- Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face, new research has found.

The research, from Swinburne University of Technologyin Melbourne, found after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social supportand friendship networks than those who didn't blog.

Researchers James Baker and Susan Moore have written two papers investigating the psychological benefits of blogging and regularly updating personal Web pages with information that invites others to comment.

The first, published in the latest issue of the journal CyberPsychology and Behavior, compares the mental health of people intending to blog with that of people not planning to blog.

Moore says the researchers messaged 600 MySpaceusers personally and directed them to an online survey. A total of 134 completed the questionnaire; 84 intended to blog and 50 didn't.

"We found potential bloggers were less satisfied with their friendships and they felt less socially integrated, they didn't feel as much part of a community as the people who weren't interested in blogging ... they were also more likely to use venting or expressing your emotions as a way of coping," Moore said.

And it seemed to do the trick, as the researchers' second study shows.

This study, which is yet to be published, was conducted two months later. The researchers sent out questionnaires to the same group of MySpace users; this time 59 responded. Bloggers reported a greater sense of belonging to a group of like-minded people and feeling more confident they could rely on others for help.

All respondents, whether or not they blogged, reported feeling less anxious, depressed and stressed after two months of online social networking.

"So going onto MySpace had lifted the mood of all participants in some way," Moore says. "Maybe they'd just made more social connections."

Moore acknowledges this is early research and hopes to follow a larger group of people for a longer period time to test some of the research findings.