I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’ve met most of my friends via the Internet. I think a decade ago that would have been strange to admit. Only something that someone who looked and acted like Napoleon Dynamite would have admitted in the year 2000.
I went through 5 years of college without forging one friendship that has stood to this day. Come to think of it, I went through all of school without one relationship lasting. I probably would only have a group of acquaintances that I would call friends if it were not for the Internet. I hold the word friend to a higher level than most. To me, a friend is someone who I feel connected and alive with. Someone who I can truly explore who I really am with. Someone who will let me explore who they really are. It sounds cliché. I wish it was. I think many people go through life with that hope but don’t achieve it.
The Internet has enabled me to seek out and forge those relationships. I don’t think it’s very conscious at the moment, but I think most people on social networks are on for that same reason. I think that it’s part of our social evolution and a key part.
Without the Internet I would not have been introduced to Ayn Rand’s philosophy, atheism, anarchism or any other ideas that have completely changed the way I think about life.
My generation is sitting on a potential energy bomb of social connection and are hooking into it at an exponential rate. There are flurries of true human connection here and there but I don’t think that it is even close to being fully tapped.
That’s what excites me about the Internet. The potential for human connection. That’s why I blog. That’s why I Facebook. That’s why I Twitter. That’s why I use deviantArt.
I just thought I’d make it conscious and hope to make it conscious for others. I’ve seen a lot of shaming (self and external) going on lately about using social networking. I don’t want it to become another excuse to shame ourselves for being human. These tools are meant to be embraced and used to connect with people who will help you become who you are. And by natural exchange, you will help them become who they are.
