Feeling inspired to start a blog? Great, but don’t throw away your handwritten journal just yet. Journaling and blogging serve very different functions. Blogging is a performance—you’re not just writing for yourself, you’re writing for a digital audience and hoping that their response will validate you. That undermines the honesty achieved when you’re writing for your eyes only, says James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.Journaling is private and therapeutic. Writing about your experiences—especially the difficult ones—can help to strengthen your immune system and lower your blood pressure, according to Dr. Pennebaker, who has researched this topic for decades. Researchers are not convinced that taking your diary digital will result in the same benefits.That doesn’t mean that blogging is bad. “Blogs serve an important social function by bringing people together who otherwise wouldn’t be and allowing them to learn from one another,” says Dr. Pennebaker. So when you want to compare strategies on a situation others share, like dealing with a disease or raising twins, blogging can help you connect. But when you want to search your own soul, you’re better off with a pen and paper. —Tammy Tibbetts