The internet is not real life
By Meg Dowell
I have considered quitting the internet numerous times over the past 10 years. Forunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), my chosen profession as a journalist and hobby as a content creator have kept me online. But in my ongoing struggle to define the role of social media in my well-being (or lack thereof), I have dedicated a lot of time to considering what the social internet actually represents for the majority of people who spend a lot of time on it.
In many ways, social media is a lot like real life -- just extremely exaggerated. Most people offline get angry often, but they don't often go on destructive rants. Most people in real life have interests and hobbies, but those generally aren't the only things they talk about throughout the day. Most people have questions and thoughts and ideas, but they don't spend valuable time wondering whether or not they are worth sharing with hundreds if not thousands of people (or more) right then and there.
Being online is almost like viewing the world as if it were being documented by someone paid to poke fun at it. Which celebrity is Twitter mad at this morning? Which viral video has consumed the allotted icebreaker portion of every early afternoon meeting? Which fandom is misbehaving in the worst way tonight, and who will still remember it tomorrow?
But spend even just a day away from the internet and you immediately start to notice how unlike the real world it has really become. People like to have real conversations. They aren't nearly as judgmental as their online personas might make you believe. Have you ever noticed that talking about online happenings when you aren't online sort of feels ... unnecessary?
We each as individuals have to figure out what being online means for us, and how to separate our online and offline worlds. I have to be online for work, but I don't have to drag online drama into my real life. I like it better that way, personally.