Online friends: Dangerous influence or evolving socialisation?
The benefits, downsides & how this relates to my personal experiences online
Pre-amble: I apologise for the lack of content over the last month. Not only have I been busy with some real-life matters, I’ve also been focusing on a project outside of my personal Substack, not to mention I was working on a piece that I ultimately decided to put aside because it didn’t meet my standards. Instead, I chose to further develop one of my many drafts, which is the piece you see now. Enjoy!
Since the advent and widespread availability of the Internet, people have always been concerned with the potential harm it brings. From online predators who might groom vulnerable children, cyberbullies who will constantly insult you, to potential human trafficking that might occur as a result of meeting strangers online in real life, relationships conducted on the Internet beyond mere have always been a hotspot for controversy. I remember so many “online safety” talks being held in school, hearing stories of people who were taken advantage of on the Internet or were cyberbullied into suicide like Amanda Todd (yeah, does anyone still remember her)?
That angle seems to have been forgotten by the current generation or, at least, is the least of their concerns. Instead, it seems to be increasingly normal for so many young people to have online relationships with peers, mediated through platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr & Discord. Especially with the pandemic halting normal social activities for many people, it’s become more common for many youths to engage in online communities. And like many other things that have happened because of Web 2.0, there are unintended consequences.
So…is online socialisation a good or a bad thing?
I’ll start first with the positives of socialising online. First and foremost, with how the Internet is curated, people can choose specific communities to become a part of, or create those communities with likeminded people who have the same interests. This is especially true if said interest is relatively obscure, or at least not as popular in real life (eg a Gen Z who is into 80s heavy metal when most of their friends are blasting Doja Cat and BTS). By connecting with people online with the same interests, people may no longer feel a sense of alienation from their peers for having interests that are different from the mainstream, as they can easily search for people who do.
The second benefit is simply how easy it is to socialise compared to real life. Real life friendships can be tricky to navigate. Establishing new friends isn’t easy, as is trying to maintain those relationships. This is especially true if you’re an introverted Sperg like myself and are pretty bad at both. Sometimes, you’re just unlucky and end up in a peer environment which is actively hostile towards you, like being in a school full of bullies, or being in a dangerous neighbourhood where you could get shot if you wandered outside at the wrong time. Or maybe it’s a simple case where all your friends live too far away from you and it’s harder for you to meet up. Online socialising doesn’t have those issues. You don’t have to play by those complex social rules and more often than not, people are going to treat you nicely and will tend towards more “affirmative” behaviours. Monia covers this in depth with her post discussing the “parallel realities” of online communities, and how they draw people in with the infinite possibilities that are seemingly more attractive than real life (very belated thank you for the shoutout to my DNI piece!).
The tendency towards “affirmative” behaviour leads me to my third point, which often gets brought up in discussions from “pro-online friends” people: people are seemingly very accepting online. Obviously, the Internet has been the gathering point for many unusual people, notably furries and other “kink” communities which are seen as oddballs to most of the public. However, it also serves the purposes of people who have much more “real” issues than wearing fursuits in public, like LGBT individuals in not-as-accepting environments, or people with mental health problems who require ad-hoc support networks.1 It’s no different from a gay man going to a gay bar in the 80s, or how goth teenagers met each other at Hot Topic in the early 2000s (which will be important for later). I have spoken to a number of people who used 90s dial-up internet to socialise online and interacting with likeminded outsiders online gave them a sense of confidence which they couldn’t express in real life due to various issues. This has only been taken to an nth degree in the 2010s with the rise of Tumblr and “everything is valid” culture, and seems to have become a widespread virtue among young people.
However, as we all know, there is a downside. The explosion of online communities does have unexpected real life consequences on young people everywhere, especially because they have been raised by it. Notably, youths have become more withdrawn and are not as willing to participate in meaningful activities in real life, as that can all be done through the screen. This had led to Gen Z being very risk-averse in terms of participating in certain real life activities that their parents engaged in as a rite of passage, like having sex or drinking alcohol. Depending on your perspective, this is either a good or a bad thing, but it does seem worrying that Gen Z seem to be less interested in taking risks and are more interested in abstract ideologies they have no stake in. This is why you see older people making fun of Gen Z all being virgins despite many of them ra-rahing about sex positivity.
There’s also the mental health problems associated with being “terminally online”, such as increased rates of depression, anxiety and body image issues, as Jonathan Haidt outlines in The Coddling of the American Mind. In particular, teenaged girls are at risk because they have a tendency to be more self-conscious about their image, as well as socialisation dynamics for female-dominated spaces being more harsh than male ones. The latter in particular does ring true online, as most fandoms are primarily comprised of natal females. Moreover, because the Internet is a text-based medium, aggression can only be expressed through verbal bullying, harassment & cancellations, which is more reminiscent of female-typical social dynamics, as opposed to male-typical ones which rely on physical aggression.
Any discussion of online socialisation isn’t complete without a mention of social contagion. In the last few years, concern has been drawn towards social media as a vector for memetic behaviour/attitudes, sometimes with life-altering consequences. One of the most notable examples of social contagion is Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), a term coined by Lisa Littman to describe the explosion of teenaged natal females who suddenly declare trans identities (trans man or nonbinary) after engaging in a peer group that is mostly trans-identified. This sometimes happens in the context of online spaces, notably Tumblr, as recounted by many detransitioned females.
However, ROGD certainly happens in males and also applies to adjacent concepts like sexual orientation (see footnote for clarification).2
Another example of social contagion is the spread of mental disorders among teens, notably Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Tourette’s Syndrome. The spread of DID has led to many teens claiming to develop “alters” whom they can wittingly change into on-camera, while those claiming Tourette’s develop atypical tics not observed in most patients. Social contagion also manifests through the self-diagnoses movement, where people claim to have self-diagnosed themselves with mental illnesses by virtue of relating to common behaviours observed in certain conditions, notably autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety & obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).3
I would also argue that radicalisation in either direction of the political spectrum is a form of “social contagion.” When you’re in a space where everyone is parroting the same politics and are getting rewarded for it, while a person who breaks from the line gets cast out as an apostate, you would be inclined to fit in with the group that has the “louder” voice as a social survival tactic. After all, if you’re trying to be accepted by a group, you would engage in behaviours that would get you into their good graces. And when you’re already a lonely person in real life and this is seemingly the only place that will accept you, that will probably push a lot of people into conforming just for the sake of having that community.
I’ve been in online circles for the last 6 years. The first 4 years were spent in various fandom spaces, while the last 2 have been spent in places that promote broadly “heterodox politics.” And while some things have remained the same, there was a stark contrast in how I felt socialising in them.
My fandom experiences were ultimately disappointing in my eyes. While I had fleeting moments of happiness and enjoyment, they were often eclipsed by endless community drama, people being emotionally unstable and a general feeling that you couldn’t speak your mind. This was undoubtedly a combination of both the social justice-oriented nature of these communities, as well as the general immaturity of people involved, since most of them were either teenagers or very stunted man-children. Many took the opportunity to get offended over innocuous comments which they exaggerated to be bigotry and even made accusations up on occasion to throw people under the bus. I knew way too many people who were falsely accused of various bigotries by opportunistic users, leading to anxiety, depression and even suicide attempts if the harassment was serious enough.4
The immaturity also manifested in how people reacted to those in need of help or advice. Whenever I had anxious thought spirals, these people defaulted to the “all feelings are valid” rhetoric and as a result, I was encouraged to do things to my real-life friends, because the message I got was that the feelings underlying my actions were valid. Unfortunately, those actions often backfired in my face and I ended up pissing off a lot of my actual friends as a result.
In contrast, my current communities have less of these issues. Yes, there are still intense disagreements which put a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, I have run into toxic people on occasion. But overall, it is much preferable. Aside from the fact that I’m engaging in communities that explicitly break away from the social justice orthodoxy, most people I encounter are generally more secure in their life stations. Many have long-term jobs, are married/in longterm romantic partnerships and a number of them are parents as well. They come from a perspective which I’ve sorely needed in my adult life: people who are older who can give advice on life issues, but without the big generational gap of my parents or the relative social immaturity of my peers. It’s been a grounding experience to learn from them and to know that a lot of my anxieties are just a part of growing up, or are ultimately not as important.
Of course, I also engage with content differently as well. I’ve been a lot more judicious with how I interact online. If I lose interest in something, I just stop engaging until I regain interest again, as opposed to forcing myself to be there just in case “I miss out.” I also find that I’m more willing to fall off situations which I find too intense to be involved with. Am I still a doom-scroller? Yeah, somewhat. Do I sometimes have a bad case of outrage bait? Yes, for certain. However, I hold a lot more restraint and I have times where I don’t engage with the phone at all, like if I’m hanging out with my real-life friends: a far cry from the days where I would compulsively check Twitter every few minutes.
So, is online socialisation a new dangerous influence on the children by making them incels/radical leftists, or a long-needed solution for people who needed connections?
My tepid, centrist answer is: it all depends on how you use it.
The current issues surrounding online socialisation is reminiscent of the discourse surrounding teenagers hanging out at malls from the 1980s to early 2000s, as I briefly highlighted in my third point for pro-online socialisation. And I’m certainly not the first to point that out either. Default Friend has pointed out that online social contagion- or more specifically, ROGD- likely has its roots in American mall culture. Tumblr was simply the “lab leak” that exposed how serious these issues were. And much like how American mall culture was both a vector for people meeting life-long friends and a possible exposure for kids to unsavoury activities like gangs and drugs, it’s the same thing with online socialisation. My anecdotal experiences show both sides of it: my fandom years showed the horrible side through the intense cyberbullying & rigid social rules, while my current experiences reflect the better elements, where I’m able to engage with people whom I can be positively influenced by, as well as engage with unorthodox ideas not many people want to talk about.
My experiences probably prove that I am a “Digital Native” on some level, because the Internet has almost become an extension of myself. When I was younger, it was an escape from my peers whom I felt alienated by because I didn’t share their typical interests. As an adult, it is still an escape, this time from a crazy world which has been overtaken by the same ideologies I engaged in as a younger person.
In the business, we call that a full circle.
VERY BIG DISCLAIMER: if you have mental health issues, PLEASE GET HELP IRL FIRST & FOREMOST. When I say ad-hoc help, I mean people who already have pre-existing issues that have been diagnosed by psychiatrists and have support networks, but require further support in other ways.
By sexual orientation, I don’t mean straight kids who “turn” gay like what religious fundies have said in the past. I’m mostly referring to swathes of individuals identifying as micro-sexualities that have only emerged in the last few years, like demisexual (someone who develops sexual attraction to a person after developing a bond with them) or abrosexual (fluctuating attractions throughout your life). Demisexual in particular has the element of social contagion, because I’ve noticed that various people in my fandoms are now identifying as demisexual ever since I left them. I have a feeling that these labels are appealing because a) this is an example of normal human behaviours pathologized on the Internet and b) because it’s the easiest way to claim a “queer” orientation.
I hate the self-diagnosis movement for a multitude of reasons that can probably be saved for another post.
I knew multiple people, mostly females, who developed these symptoms after getting cyber-bullied online. Most of the cyberbullies were fellow fandom members, who, for one reason or another, would accuse these people of being horrible bigots & would go on smear campaigns to tarnish the person’s image. For example, I knew a teenaged girl who attempted suicide after a cyberbully accused her of transphobia for liking a tweet from JK Rowling and she was subsequently dogpiled. Thankfully, she was saved in time, but this incident still haunts my memory because I should have taken the hint that I needed to GTFO.