I have a complex relationship with technology. I oscillate between feeling indebted to its power of summoning a free audience online to despising how much it's taken away my ability to live in the moment.
For what I lacked in therapy, friends who listened to me, and parental love whilst growing up, I made up with technology.
Technology was my therapist when I had no friends in elementary school and found them in virtual worlds like Club Penguin, drilling the iceberg with my fellow comrades in unison, shouting at others to join us in all caps.
Technology was my therapist when my parents were fighting as I was growing up, and I resorted to falling down Quora rabbit holes, scavenging for kindred souls.
Technology was my therapist when my dad gaslit and berated me for being confused while learning Java, even when many others online were asking the same questions as me.
Technology was my therapist when I didn't know how to address hardships in my first relationship, so I posted on r/relationships for advice, trusting the validity of whatever advice anonymous experts instinctively spouted into my abyss.
I owe it to technology to have watched over me as I grew up over the years, to have stored all of my memories, to have taken me under its digital wing and listened to all of my problems with each tweet, each post, each callout into the darkness.
Or do I?
Was technology truly my therapist, or was it just an on-demand replacement for friendships, for love, and for being heard?
For what it's comforted me with, it’s also hurt me.
Technology was my abuser when it threw me into disorienting confusion on webMD as I sifted through and matched up symptoms of every possible mental illness with that of my own.
Technology was my abuser when it resurfaced pictures of my first ex, as I was painfully struggling to forget about him.
Technology was my abuser when it trapped me in a labyrinth filled with mirages of myself, treading water amongst my old identities as I struggled to reach out and grasp at something new.
Was technology just the medium that was connecting me to people who would have their short bursts of attention focused on me, which I felt was missing from people in my real life? These online strangers who had a friends-with-benefits type relationship with me by offering short lapses of companionship in exchange for momentary pleasure?
I wonder now if being reliant on these temporary forms of connection has destroyed my ability to commit to long-term relationships. I'm fearful of the possibility that I’ve unintentionally translated these naturally disposable online relationships to the real world, holding friendships I cherish too loosely and becoming addicted to constantly hunting for more.
internet-related stuff
bo burnham’s welcome to the internet
college humor’s if google was a person
been kinda concerned what the internet could look like for 3d worlds if we haven’t resolved the problems in 2d…