Danger

For the past few weeks, I have been coming to Blogger, typing a short paragraph, then leaving and trying again in a few days. It has not been productive. I haven't had anything to say.

But now I think I do have something: The internet is killing us, socially. Ok, maybe 'killing' is too strong a word, and maybe 'us' is too general. The internet is changing some of us socially. That's not very strong or assertive at all. It's too bland. The internet is killing us socially, dammit. It is way too easy to get caught up in some twisted trip through memory lane and end in the wrong places. Basically, the Internet is made up of two things: porn (obviously) and bad memories. There are small percentages of useful bits here and there; social networks and Flash games, mostly; but the truth is, it's a horrible place populated by people who are anonymous and therefore jackasses. It's a sad truth.

I don't know how I end up in places that bring back bad or unwanted memories. I just sort of stumble there some time between shutting off my brain when I sit down at the computer and jerking awake suddenly because there's some piece of data on my screen I didn't want to be reminded of. I will admit, I'm guilty of mindlessly clicking around the internet, and most times, I just end up wasting hours on Reddit (IAMA can be fascinating, I swear). Bet there are times where I end up at social profiles of people I should be looking up. Ex-girlfriends, old crushes, sworn enemies. Ok, so I don't actually have any sworn enemies, but the point remains the same: the ubiquity of personal information available on the internet makes it way too easy for us to anonymously check up on people, and, in turn, for people to check up on us.

I am pretty free with information. I'll give away my non-vital information on a whim if I can get an adequate reward for it. It's not hard to find me online if you know what to search for (curiously, I don't actually appear until the second page when Googling my name), and I don't mind that. The only reason I bothered to lock anything down was for potential employers, whom I feel would not hire me due to the lack of excitement present in my life as it currently exists. It would be quite simple for an ex (or an enemy) to find one of my social profiles online and see how I'm doing.

It's all dangerous, though. You can avoid someone in person, you can even cut all ties with them - but our intense attachment to social networks means that one slightly tipsy evening of depressed searching can undo any emotional healing that may have taken place. Not that I speak from experience, because I have definitely never done this. And, to be honest, the internet is heartless when it comes to finding things out. So your old love's got a new love? There's no easy way to to explain "In a relationship," and Facebook isn't so good at breaking the news gently. It's as though we need a filter to tell our computers what we can handle and what we can't. Some sort of web filter to give us a gentle "Are you sure you want to visit this Twitter feed?" followed by a swift kick in the head. We're at the point where we need our computers to fill in the jobs formerly done by friends in protecting us from ourselves.

Or maybe it's just me.