Life with the Internet

The internet. It feels like it's been around for my entire lifetime. But using social media it is now a daily staple in staying "connected" and I have a love/hate relationship quite like no other!

I am thankful that Social media has allowed me to reconnect with old friends, stay connected with friends and family in different areas around the world, make new business connections and some new personal connections as well!

But we are living in a society where our virtual life is quickly over taking real life!  Our Social media lives are "edited".  Each photo selected to portray us is scrutinized to make sure we look our best, we post photos of our "perfect" children.  We boast about our triumphs and our wins!  Sure there is the occasional "train wreck" who posts every single pathetic detail (and you just can't look away right?), the occasional heart wrenching personal story when we need to pull together and support someone but our daily virtual lives are far from raw and far from real!

When I was a little girl I remember my mom talking on the phone for what seemed liked hours!  She would talk to her mom, her sister, her friends and the neighbours.  I remember the "not right now, I'm on the phone" if I interrupted her (and the JESSICA, I'm on the phone shhhhhht" that often followed when I interrupted her subsequent times!  My children aren't even sure how to act if I'm on the phone, my call display only consists of the dentist and our parents (call display that's another topic), this mom doesn't chat on the phone.  I send my friends a quick text for their birthdays, an email invite for parties, a Facebook message if I want to chat but rarely does anything warrant the now elusive phone call!  In fact the other day, I was met with a "You still have a home phone?  Why?"

There is NOTHING raw and real about social media, nothing raw and real about a text message!  Some days are hard and some days are dark, we've all been there!  On these dark days we hide behind the screen, pretending that we are fine when we should be releasing our inner beast with a trusted friend!  Instead we answer the tone less text messages and emails and no one knows we could really use a hug!  In the day and age where we have 100's of "friends" our generation is the loneliest generation yet!  People know so much information about us but no one really knows us!

We peruse our friends profiles, and we think we are "connected" with them and their family!  We watch their children grow and we "like" their status' when we hear of all their accomplishments!  We have 426 "friends", we have 92 people wish us happy birthday, yet we are a lonely and disconnected society!  

We are so busy comparing ourselves to these carefully edited social media accounts with these perfect moms who have seemingly perfect husbands, a perfect (and clean) home, and always delicious meals (don't tell me you haven't noticed) and Pinterestesque birthday parties that we could never pull off, that we forget to just be happy with the simple things in life!  We forget to actually live our lives outside of the internet!  We forget to explore the world (while we browse the internet for photos of foreign lands and add it to the list of places we'd like to visit but never will)! 

I am sad for my kids that the internet has even brought bullying to a whole new level!  When we were kids and someone was teasing us (because that's what bullying was called back then) we could escape the mean kid everyday after school!  We went home, played outdoors, played with the neighborhood kids, read books, and built forts!  NOW cyber bullying ensures that no place is safe, Facebook hate groups, group texting, and other avenues this old lady probably doesn't even know about makes bullying follow kids around day and night!

 I am often tempted to hit the delete button on my Facebook account, but it does serve a purpose!  so for now I am concentrating on living a real and raw existence in REAL LIFE!  Experiencing as much human interaction and soaking up as much real life as I can!  I hope you will join me in putting down your phones and making some real contact today!