How should we approach connection on social media?

In this blog for Sexual Health Week, Choolwe from Brook’s 16-19 Participation Advisory Group explores the positive and negative ways social media can impact connection.

Meeting people on the internet is easy. Social media algorithms are designed to trap us in echo chambers with people we agree with: we’re flooded with comment sections where people give out personal stories that we can relate to, and we can find like-minded opinions on viral posts. This can create a feeling of interpersonal or communal discussion, and can make us feel less alone, especially if our opinion is being validated. These snapshots of furious debate or human empathy sometimes mean we partake in performative socialising rather than finding positive community or mutual vulnerability, things we often receive from physical human interactions. This can leave us with strong feelings of nihilism, anger or self-righteousness that only serve to isolate us further.

It can feel like there is extra pressure to reply to messages instantly or risk a dwindling interest in conversation from the other person when we connect online. Sustaining connections here can be hard and not being able to discern how someone really feels without having access to their body language makes it exponentially harder.

For me, sometimes the impersonal nature of virtual communication can make it feel like you’re speaking into a void instead of speaking with another person.

If we only use virtual communication to build connection, we are denied the opportunity to grow our ability to socialise away from a screen and it can diminish our capability to tolerate disagreement or conflict in our day-to-day lives, driving us to isolate ourselves further and even spiral into antisocial behaviour. Online relationships often come with their own set of drawbacks like not knowing how much of your personal information you can share since you’ve never met the person behind the screen. It’s easy to trust when we feel connected, but we must set boundaries to stay safe online.

The internet isn’t all bad though. We are often approached by people online who seem to share our interests and understand our preferred tastes of internet humor because social media algorithms are trained to direct us to accounts of people who share similar values. This creates an opportunity to speak to people outside of our usual social circles. These people may come from different religions, or economic classes, or even different countries. Conversations can take place at three in the morning if you’re a night owl and it’s midafternoon where the other person lives. This means we can connect with more people and learn about other cultures or gain perspective on how other people see the world. We could be encouraged to take up new hobbies and be better informed of the world around us. After all, even if the internet is concerned with grouping people with similar viewpoints, we’re all unique and have something to teach each other. In fact, it’s hard not to get excited at the prospect of building a connection with others; the novelty and joy of making a new friend makes us feel more connected.

Memes and reels also allow us to bypass the discomfort of small talk or the unease of not knowing what to do with your body and the self-consciousness that comes with physically meeting others. I personally find it easier to open up and engage in conversation when I’m in the comfort of my own home and not worried about whether my body language will be perceived as rude or disconnected. Making conversation less tense is less about following a rigid set of social rules and more about two human beings getting to know each other. It’s also a lot easier to connect with people online since you both understand that you have lives to live off the internet. People are more gracious about continuing older conversations or picking up where you left off after days or months. A lot of friendships online can be sustained by sharing videos online, allowing people to sustain connection without using a lot of mental energy. Online relationships can be low energy – high reward; even when we are worn down or unable to sustain long conversations, behaviours which could cause us to isolate ourselves from others, it can help us to preserve human connection.

For many people the internet allows them to be charitable and participate in social change. This could include creating online campaigns to raise public awareness about a social issue or enable us to remain informed about what’s happening in the world around us.

Being informed about the wider world allows us to participate in conversations with people in our communities and form connections with them.

Online campaigns grant opportunities to have many people bond over a social issue that they are affected by and be supported by other human beings during potentially stressful seasons of their lives. They could also inform us of places in our local community where people can gather specifically to socialize since they are harder to come by in our day-to-day lives, especially for people who don’t live in urban areas or large cities.

The internet also gives us access to a variety of media and allows us to find connection while bonding over art. Many artists, poets, writers, musicians, film makers etc. post and promote their art online for our entertainment. This targeted approach of promoting media makes it easy for communities to form around a shared experience of media. Much of this community allows people to make new friends or find an outlet for their own creativity by making fan art and participating in conversation or celebration of a beloved piece of media. Encouraging people to connect with others and easily maintain social interactions since most people are really excited to share their opinions with other people!

Connecting online presents challenges as well as opportunities. The internet is built on human interaction and communities e.g. discord servers, subreddits, WhatsApp communities, Facebook groups, various messaging chats on Instagram or TikTok’s. It’s easy to find people to talk to and connect with online, so as long as you stay safe and set clear boundaries on what information you feel comfortable sharing with other people, there are a lot of positives that come with that. But I think it’s good to remember that for a lot of us it’s still important to have people offline who you can talk to because human touch and physical communication are necessary for us to live fulfilling lives.