Are We Handling the Internet or Is It Handling Us?

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The internet has completely changed the world that we live in. It has given us a place that we can be completely free and unrestricted. It comes with unlimited choices and I wonder how we are handling this freedom. Can any of us possibly comprehend how the internet and social media are affecting our society?

I wonder if we realize a beautiful Instagram account, profile picture or blog post is not what makes our life beautiful. Have we become consumed with how our life appears and not so concerned with the reality of who we are? Perhaps we are measuring our self-worth by how many “likes” and “followers” we have. Could it be possible that we know how to present a perfect selfie, but don’t know how to love ourselves?

I wonder how many of us struggle with loving who we are without a filter.

I wonder how often we feel disappointed with our lives after seeing how great our “friends” have it. Do we feel that we don’t measure up to everyone else? How often do we feel like we are missing out? We are exposed to so much on social media, it is impossible not to have feelings about what we see. I wonder how many afternoons we have spent upset or mad because of something we have seen on our Facebook or Instagram. How much drama are we adding to our life by being so engaged online?

Social media is crazy because we can instantly share information with our closest friends and our most distant acquaintances. There are times that we choose to confide in our Facebook family before our actual family. How often do we share a status to the world, when perhaps we should be calling a friend?

What about the internet makes us believe that we can say whatever we think? So many people have been affected by bullying online, and it seems too easy to pour out hate.  It would be wise to think twice before we type out our entitled opinions.

Social media, texting and sexting is changing our relationships. Do we realize that love is not merely about a romantic text, a cute picture or a sweet Facebook post? I wonder how many people can write the romantic words, but struggle to actually live in love. It would be interesting to know how many secret texts and messages have been sent, because our culture says it isn’t cheating until its sex. It is growing more common for women to send nude pictures to interested men; unfortunately, she often finds that she is only another model for his collection.

I wonder how our kids are being affected by growing up in this world of constant performance and comparison. So many are struggling with anxiety and depression. Perhaps they don’t feel they measure up to the standard that has been set. It is growing more and more common for nude pictures to be traded amongst our youth. Great kids, making big choices, because they can. I wonder how many parents recognize that our kids know their way around a phone and have downloaded apps to cover their tracks. The kids that don’t take part are often pressured or bullied. We have wonderful kids that are being bombarded with pressures and many of them are drowning in them.

Do we expect our children to possess a discipline that most adults don’t have?

Many men, young and old, are trapped in the obsession of the images they can access online. Crazy enough, many men would rather look at a picture on a screen instead of touching the living, breathing woman in his bed. 

I wonder how many secret lives are being lived, because society says that “if no one knows, it’s not happening.”

Could the time we are spending in our virtual world be stealing from our actual life? I wonder how many of us realize the life we are living and the life we are losing.

It does not surprise me at all that we are struggling to handle the freedom we have been given. What does surprise me is what seems to be a lack of desire to bring forth change. It surprises me that we don’t have more women speaking out about the pressures of feeling inadequate and that men haven’t begun to stand up and speak truthfully about how the world of unlimited imagery is affecting them. It surprises me that more parents are not getting educated with the world their children are growing up in.

Social media and the internet are not going anywhere. Let’s take charge. Let’s use all the technology we have to connect us better, equip us more and embrace life wholly. Let’s find a way to be the same wonderful person in our virtual world as we are in our actual lives. If we find ourselves struggling to be a kind, confident, honest, wholesome person on the internet, I might suggest that the internet is not the creator of our struggles. The internet; however, can be a revealer of them.

What would happen if we used the internet to stand more confident in who we are and launch us further into our purpose instead of distracting us from it? I wonder…