The Interwebs We Weave

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – The advancement of the internet and social media was the absolute downfall of society. Now that may sound extreme, so let’s talk about it but let’s start from the way back.

I’ve spoken about growing up in the 80’s/90’s, sitting on the cusp of Generation X - Millennial and happily a member of the Xennials. My childhood was textbook – play outside all the time. I took my barbies out on the back deck to play with them in the mornings in the summer. The neighborhood kids all played together, varying in age. From Bike riding, to tag to adventures in the woods to nighttime games of manhunt. I lived in a lake community, so swimming in the summer was daily. During the snowy season we built snowmen, went to the local hill to sleighride and ice-skate when the lake was frozen. Friday night (TGIF), Saturday morning cartoons and then wrestling (WWF) and Sunday evening (Disney night) was television time. I did play Atari with my older cousins and remember when Nintendo came out then subsequently Gameboy. I remember the original Legend of Zelda and I definitely passed from dysentery a time or two crossing the Oregon Trail. Childhood arguments were settled with a school yard tumble, and you were friends again in 5 minutes. Or you weren’t. Adult squabbles were settled in a similar manner, talk shit -get hit.

Now that we have established that I’m old, let’s clarify that I am older than the internet. I remember typing on computers when they were basically just typewriters with a screen that you could play solitaire on. (sigh I also had a typewriter to type my homework assignments). “Rich people” had printers. I remember the dawn of the internet, email, AOL and chat rooms to myspace and beyond. At the same time, technology also advanced from beepers, pagers, gigantic satellite looking phones, to Nextel’s (that walkie talkie feature was nobody’s friend at 3am ), to Blackberry’s and so on until we have come to basically always having a computer in the palm of your hand. We have navigated away from encyclopedias and school textbooks to all children having mac or Chromebooks and online curriculum based on “education” websites. Printed books are not nearly as popular since the dawn of Kindle (I am so guilty of this little convenience). I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a newspaper or a Pennysaver (that might be something from my local area, but it was essentially a “craigslist” in print for jobs, houses, tag sales, lost pets etc..). I “clip coupons” online and no longer need to wait for the Sunday paper. Is this newfound tech of the 21st century convenient? Oh, Heck yes! Speaking as a member of the pre-tech generation who grew up with technology but was not reliant on it. These newer generations though, they don’t know any life outside of the modern convenience of the here and now.

The internet………..A gigantic, never-ending world of services and information at your fingertips 24/7. There are occasional outages but overall, it never sleeps. When there is a rare outage, oh man. With the advancements of technology, people started communicating less by spoken words and more in written text. Kind of like writing a letter in the “olden days”, but not. Emails, text messages and instant messaging. When phones first became popular, you had to “buy” minutes, unless you called after 7pm. It was cheaper to have unlimited texting than calling. I know how foreign the concept of buying time on the cellphone sounds, in an age of unlimited everything, but that is where we were in the early 2000’s. That was the beginning of the breakdown of regular old communication skills and conversation. There is a lot lost in written communication. Overall tone, temperature and delivery of the information is often received incorrectly or poorly, leaving at least one party in the communication disgruntled. Sadly, we have evolved to a people who would rather be unsettled over a text message with punctuation than pick up the phone to speak with someone to clarify the message’s intent. Maybe Sad Sarah really did want to slap you with some insults? Or maybe not. The world may never know.

Now this black hole of information…..some people will take every single word they find on them there interwebs like gospel. It must be true cause I found it on the internet. Some people are beyond shocked to hear that anyone, and I actually mean anyone, can start a webpage. About anything. And call it whatever they want if the domain doesn’t already exist. If there is already a blueshoes. com, they can essentially be blueshoes. org. Then they can go on to post or host *almost* anything they want to. I say almost because there are still rules, but they may or may not be enforced in a timely manner. They can call this information fact if they want to. In the age of graphic design, video editing or plain old photoshop (or similar software concepts), things can look real. There are ways and reputable websites that one can do research on but many that are taken as fact are not quality sources. For perspective, I can add information to a wiki page, just cause. Am I a subject matter expert in Japanese flowers? No, I am not; but that shouldn’t stop me from adding my opinion-based fact. To reiterate – not everything you read on the internet or in an email, is factual information. Trust me, I read it on the internet.

This brings me to my nemesis, social media and other similar platforms that allow people to express their feeling and opinions. Sigh. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I encourage people to have opinions on things. Thoughts, research, and conversations lead to more ideas and open doors for additional conversations at the table. The first amendment protects your freedom of speech if it is not defamatory or inciting violence or chaos. What the first amendment does *not do, is protect you from the consequences of those freely spoken (written) words. So, choose those words and hills carefully. Just because you have an opinion, does not make it fact. It also doesn’t mean that everyone must agree with you. It’s an opinion; your perspective on a topic or your interpretation of the data presented. I use the term data loosely because people these days seem to believe that all memes they see are fact. Refer to the previous paragraph about information on the internet if needed. In 2003, 50 cent gave us Patiently Waiting (and it is amazing but not the point) which includes a very important piece of advice – “You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house And if you’ve got a glass jaw, you should watch your mouth” (not exact and just a snippet). People at large feel like their opinion must be respected and their online presence gives them some sort of superiority…? Watching grown people fight on the internet is wild and weird. Generally, people feel that no one can have a different perspective on anything and are immediately labeled as (insert any derogatory term). There is calling out entire groups of people for the beliefs of one. There is attacking family members, including children. Long ago, if you had a disagreement with someone and talked sideways about their spouse and kids, you got smacked in the mouth. Now everyone is behind a keyboard, feeling strong and big in their mom’s basement, spewing whatever hidden away from the real world. There is no longer an immediate consequence until the cancel culture comes to visit (more on that another day). If such a skirmish happens in public, you run the risk of being shot in the face or run over. People aren’t scared of consequences because for so long now, there hasn’t been any. People aren’t coping well because they have not had appropriate exposure to disappointment or failure and those skills were never developed, which leads to entitlement. I’m not saying that 80s kids have healthy coping skills, but we do at the bare minimum HAVE the skills to navigate disappointment. People spend so much time inside their electronic devices, they have forgotten that a real world exists outside of the handheld device. Real people, real problems, and real responsibilities. The book of face, the gram of insta and all those other make-believe places that exist with the ”friends” inside your phone are not real life. I’ve watched people verbally accost their “friends” on the internet and then turn around to tell them they “love” them. Fukking Yikes! I’ve watched strangers wish death or other egregious unwell wishes on strangers for a difference in opinion. What. In. The. World…. To say it’s disappointing is an understatement of epic proportions.

This is a particular topic that I could write about for days, so this is a little longer than normal. And I am positive that I will come around and write more about this at a later date. What currently goes on in society is terrifying and disheartening. Everyone needs to take a breath, go outside, and roll around in some grass, detox from electronics and just exist in the real moment for a little bit. Life is so incredibly short and unpredictable. Don’t just exist on the internet. Live. The internet is not fact. Social media is not real life. And it is never that serious. Go be great in the real world! And follow along as I share my opinions on the internet and social media! But seriously, I go outside too. 😉 Stay safe friends.

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