A long announcement with details

Maintaining an online presence is considered mandatory as the social interactions move more and more online. However, it is not obvious why it is necessary.

A friend of mine used to ask, why is it necessary for researchers to have an online presence of some form. The reason is actually very simple, meaningful research is defined through the degree of interests it captures amongst other people, it doesn’t have to be useful or groundbreaking, since even interests might be false interests. However, if one truly believes one’s research is worthy of interest, then it follows naturally that one should distribute it to increase the reach, hence necessitating an online presence like a personal website; if one does not believe the inherent interest of one’s research, then there is no meaning in continuing at all.