The Dark Side of the Internet: How Social Media can Kill Relationships

How can the depths of your heart be expressed when they are tied up in words and syllables?  
- The book of Mirdad.

Like everything in life, the internet exists in a duality. In this age of information it can be an incredible tool to further your mind but if depended upon for something more, like a distraction from life and introspection or a way of conveying yourself to others, it can become a very real block between yourself and your personal development.

When you create a persona on Facebook or similar, you get to choose what you portray. In real life things like body language and the fact that you are required to act or react in the moment usually means that doing this would be harder than it is on the internet. But on Facebook, you can be the positive, gorgeous model-like god or goddess that you want people to see- even though you may be at home, gripped in depression, hating every single feature of yourself and waiting for the next “like” as if it is a lifeline that provides you with some sort of validation. But what is validation if you have to ask for it? You get so stuck into this image that you want for yourself and you may not give yourself the space and time to embody the beauty that others see in you.

 You may be jealous of how amazing and together people appear on Facebook, but you must also realise that their page is usually a show reel of their life which showcases the highlights and discards the struggles and flaws that everybody suffers through.

 In contrast, others use it as stress release and post to get things off their chests, to relieve their feelings of boredom or to somehow distract from feelings of low self-esteem or despair. All these feelings have a very real and valid purpose and in my opinion need to be sat with, dealt with and shouldn’t always be medicated with crowdsourcing affection or solutions from others whether online or off. I am guilty of doing it too, but recent events in my life have made me realise the detriment that it has to my own personal development which in turn can destroy real relationships with both myself and others.

Relationships are a soft target for social media. The love you feel for another can be expressed to everyone you have ever known with a couple of keystrokes. This is todays equivalent of “shouting it from the roof tops” and begs the question, isn’t them knowing enough? Are you marking your territory? Or substituting real gestures of affection with superficial ones? It can also become a trigger for jealousy for even the most independent of people. For example: your boyfriend is online and he said he was going to bed, maybe you see he has recently added an ex or that a girl has posted a message on his wall that has one too many x’s.  All of these things can make your mind go into overdrive and let you can let yourself fall down black holes in your mind. The truth is that these things, while they CAN be a red flag, often aren’t indicators of infidelity or a lack of love but you reacting badly either outwardly or letting it eat you up can result in what you fear most. Allow your partner the freedom to be him or herself, the freedom to express themselves and don't take your interpretations as truth.

 The fact is that what happens on social media are things that a couple of years ago would have been done in private, and all relationships require privacy and space. You tread a dangerous road when you think that you can correctly interpret your partners (or anybody else for that matter) interactions with others and then react to them.

A lot of undue pressure can be placed on a person from a partner who expects the same sort of affectionate Facebook validation that they see others getting, but it is always good to keep in mind what really matters. The looks you give each other from across a room, the feeling you get when he or she looks at you and tells you they love you, or even the banter you share while cooking supper. It’s not about competing with Sharon from marketing who got a ginormous teddy bear for Valentine’s Day and constantly receives 50 wall messages professing her boyfriend’s undying love.

A lot of people show a great disdain for Instagram and many jokes and judgements are made about people who need to photograph their food even more than they need to salt their meat. Posting photos of every aspect of your life can take you out of the realness of the moment; it could also be fuelled by an ulterior motive like trying to convey how cool your life is or to trigger an emotion from one or more of your 576 “friends” and this puts you in serious danger of not living in the now.

 Not living in the moment can affect your life in so many more ways than is immediately obvious and is often the first step of other issues forming in your life. Everybody is different and by all means please post a picture of the R5000 burger you have saved up for from the most prestigious restaurant in the world; you have probably earned it and genuinely want to share this wonder of gastronomical science with the world.  My point is that it could be a good idea to investigate your need behind posting them and to maybe just trust that experiencing by yourself is enough and in a way, makes it even more special. 

It isn’t just romantic relationships that get affected, friendships and family relations can be affected too. The lack of privacy that Facebook allows means that sometimes, without your consent, somebody could share information about you either tagging you in a location when you would rather it remain unknown (for whatever reason) or in a picture that you know that they know is inappropriate.

 Sometimes friends can feel left out without reason and serious feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out) and insignificance in another’s life can take root. It is easy to be passive aggressive on Facebook and while it may give you superficial or short lived feelings of relief, it is usually a reaction and in life it is often more beneficial to wait, think and then act in a way that is mindful of you and your wellbeing.

Work relationships can also be compromised. The recent FHM debacle springs to mind where a friend of mine, who had been working for FHM,  posted a personal yet controversial status update that was misinterpreted and blown out of proportion by the public and subsequently lost him his job. What you say in your personal capacity to friends should not be something is exploited and used against you in public forum without proper context. This kind of thing can destroy careers and severely alter a person’s life course. 

I am currently trying to take a backseat in terms of social media but it has not been easy. I have managed to set aside times where I just sit and journey inside myself when I would normally use the internet to distract myself from myself.

There is so much more to say on this topic and most of these points have been borne out of my own journey of introspection and change that I have recently embarked upon. I want to bring to light the things that I have found to be true and express the importance of sometimes just putting off the PC, or changing your phones notification settings so that you can just sit and go through the feelings and thoughts that need to be addressed in yourself without public audience. Act, don’t react. 

It is not necessarily about avoiding social media completely, but being mindful. When you have something important to say to someone, make a plan to meet them and to show your heart. I wish I had come to this realisation a little earlier in life, but better late than never!

Puggles, Promiscuous Gingerbread Men and Garden Snails.

When I was 12 I ran up a bit of a phone bill playing games on the Cartoon Network website, subsequently and to this day, I’ve was banned from using the Internet in my house. It has been a rough road: missing out on internet jokes, not knowing every single detail of the guys life who sat next to me in math class, having to check books out from the library every time I needed to know something (among many other annoyingly inconvenient things).  Basically, I felt like I was living inside a ping pong ball.

The Internet, succinctly described in one picture.

As a kid I devoured National Geographic articles and could rattle on for hours about things like the downfalls of fresh water pearl farming. Now I am sure you can imagine my astonishment when I realised the enormity and implications of the World Wide Web. After that particular discovery family dinners were significantly less quiet. I began to stay late at school, sneaking into the computer lab and googling every question I had ever had (a habit that has not yet died). I also managed to get enough MySpace time in so as not to be a complete social outcast. Internet snobbery was rife in my high school.

Intent on making up for lost time and just like the majority of young Americans who have been forbidden the sweet fermented nectar that we call alcohol until their 21^st birthday (or anyone else who has been deprived of something awesome), I too began to indulge and binge in my new-found digital addiction. The weekends I spent at my boyfriend’s house became the stage for my not so secret love affair with open source information. 

Whether you are a ballet crazed cyber-goth with a penchant for crochet or a prolific business man who enjoys dressing up as Pokémon in your free time,  you will find a little corner of the Internet tailor-made for you. That’s the beauty of the internet; it’s a big place in which countless beautiful and sometimes downright strange communities have taken up residence.

No matter who you are, you will always find a place where you feel you belong on the Internet.

In my eyes the Internet is the closest that we will get to an Anarchist state. Anarchy is not, as many seem to think, a bunch of punks getting drunk and fucking shit up just for the lolz and because they can. Anarchy is an example of left wing ideology; it is a social movement that refers to a society without a publically enforced government or violently enforced political authority. The fact that there is no governance (or a distinct lack of enforced policing), while great, comes with immense responsibility. It’s a bit like the Wild West; while exciting, ungoverned and interesting, there are also metaphorical gunslingers intent on harm and misdirection so one must always keep their wits about them.

An upgrade from the old South African adage of "If it's in the You, it must be true". DON'T BE THIS PERSON. Question everything.

While there are actual laws concerning the internet, one can easily dodge any repercussions if you happen to be in violation of them- providing that you have the right skill sets. Aside from these there are also the commonly accepted 'laws' of the Internet which  are less like actual rules and more like Internet truths. The most prolific of these internet 'laws' is rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions. This law was penned after the author came across Calvin and Hobbes inspired smut which savagely attacked his childhood memories.The list of laws has been created by the public and features many insightful and hilarious rules, guidelines and truths. Some of these have fascinating and almost scientific origins which I plan on writing about in upcoming posts.

A prime example of the infamous Rule 34.

We joke, we cringe and we stand in awe of the unbridled creativity of the hive mind. Where else would we learn about how creepy and gross the baby Echidna is? Or find out that people in Japan are paying exorbitant amounts of money ($240 to be exact!) to get garden snails shipped in from South Africa so that they can imbue their miraculous anti-aging properties on the buyers by leaving goo trails on their faces? You can also download colouring in books tailor-made for the Goth community, find videos showing you the explicit details concerning home bikini waxing and marvel at the extremely depressing, yet still thankfully quite underground, movement of people erecting artistic and involved memorials for road kill.

A baby Echidna is called a Puggle. In my opinion, the cuteness of the name does not match up to the sack of (ball?)skin you see above.

Amidst all the fun facts and lolcats there is also a strong presence of activists, whistle-blowers and educators who wouldn’t exist in the public eye without this incredible platform with which to spread their message. Add to the fact that it gives aspiring and accomplished musicians, artists and writers a place to showcase their work for the whole world to see and you will understand why I hold the internet in such high regard.

It is for these reasons, and a couple thousand more, that I have picked the Internet and what I have learned from it for my new blog topic. I want to delve into the nooks and crannies of the web and bring to light the awesome, and sometimes awful, happenings that may not have revealed themselves to you yet.