For as long as I can remember, the internet has been such a useful tool for entertainment and information. It’s been, in many ways, revolutionary in changing the way people live their lives. I know my life would be quite different if it didn’t exist. I have never considered how useful it was until recently as my world got better, especially with online communities.

After I stopped participating in online communities, I realized how lonely and disconnected the world really is. Making friends in real life is actually quite hard, and the real world is much slower than the online world and therefore operates on different levels. Having grown up on the internet for a majority of my life, I am finding the adjustment to be quite difficult but still manageable.

In a previous post, I wrote about self-acceptance and self-worth. As someone who didn’t establish self-acceptance and self-worth early, I found that the internet made it seemingly difficult to be self-accepting and have self-worth. Even now, without awareness of how it is affecting my mental health, I believe it would make my mental health worse. I have to constantly make sure that what I am hearing and reading isn’t a determinant of self-worth but simply a tool on how I can improve my life.

The problem is when I don’t know what is or isn’t useful. It was only until recently that I noticed that I have to take most of what I read on the internet with a grain of salt. For instance, when I am sick and I look up the symptoms of my sickness, more often than not, the sickness is a lot worse than it really is. It almost turns people who look up health symptoms instantly into hypochondriacs. This is true for a lot of things on the internet that aren’t applicable to my life or even contrary to what I need.

Like many tools in life, it can be turned into a weapon, so I found it important to understand that if it isn’t beneficial for my growth, then it doesn’t serve me.

Until the next post, thank you for reading! As always, wishing you love and success!