Before about three weeks ago, I had never heard of Odyssey before. When I got the email about it, I joined almost right away. There are the perks of getting $20 if my article is the most shared one week, and having people see and respond to my thoughts and writing, but neither of those reasons are why I joined.
To be honest, I don't really care about the social media shares. It's never been important to me to have a lot of friends on Facebook or even to have a Twitter or Instagram account. I never posted often, and the only reason I post once a week now is because of this. Obviously it'd be great to get the money for shares and to get people reading my things, but it doesn't matter to me if I don't either.
The reason I joined is because forcing myself to write down my thoughts makes me feel a lot better than just sitting on them. I used to write often when I was feeling overwhelmed with any kind of thoughts, positive or negative, but when I started college I stopped. I convinced myself I didn't have time to write down silly things like that for no reason. Making myself sit down and write again has made me feel less stressed, even though I have a deadline and have to write something a week. Even when I'm writing about things like this, instead of things that make me bristle a bit, I still feel like I'm getting rid of all the emotions I've had pent up since last time. Plus, I can write about whatever I want, so I'm not limited to writing about things that don't care about, and means I'm allowed to use this as an outlet for what I do care about.
Of course, another good reason is that I'm a writing major, and writing weekly helps improve my writing, whether I get feedback on it or not. I don't feel like I'm a bad writer, but improving on something that you love to do, especially if it's involved with what you believe you're going to be doing your entire life, is always a good thing... As long as it's legal at least.