I could probably be considered an optimist when it comes to the online world, at least when taken into comparison to some of the doomsayers. I’m not the type of person to ring the alarms whenever studies come up saying “oh god, our kids are on Facebook more often than they kick a soccer ball” because, well, yeah, the world as we know it and how we interact with it is changing. I’m hesitant when it comes to labeling one thing as inherently good and another thing inherently evil. I’m more likely to label something as inherently complicated.

I grew up on the internet. My life online began when I was eight years old and found forums for one of my computer games–and so far has yet to see an end. And that may be where some of that optimism, perhaps sometimes idealism, comes from. I could not be more thrilled, then and now, to have more methods of communication available to me. As a kid, I was “shy”. As an adult, I see that for what it was and is: social anxiety. I hear a lot of people claiming that the internet makes kids socially awkward or irreparably damages their social skills. In my experience, it was the opposite. I had trouble with forming and maintaining social relationships long before the internet came into my life, and it was only through the relationships I made online that I was able to recognize what my behavior was and learn how to live with it. That isn’t everyone’s story, but it is mine.

So when I see clickbait titles talking about Facebook devaluing friendships or text messaging making teens more aloof or unempathetic, I’m typically a little skeptical. Sure, that could be true. Ask again in fifty years when the technology’s been around to prove it. I think there are bigger fish to fry than scaring parents into cutting off their kids’ access to their long distance relationships.

But here comes the inherently complicated part. Because as good as this sounds in a vacuum, we don’t live in one. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Apple, Amazon–all the companies that allow these things to be possible–are all inherently political, deeply flawed, and sometimes moderately terrifying organizations. They all exist as political entities. They all exist within a capitalist framework. As much as we talk about keeping the internet a free zone, of course it isn’t. Facebook doesn’t exist as some kind of utopian fantasyland designed to bring people together–it’s designed to make money. Platforms link advertisers to consumers. If all they did was link consumers to consumers, well, there’s a cannibalism joke in there but not much money.

Twitter is both an incredible revolutionary force and one which commodifies its users. Tumblr amuses and censors. Amazon sells and monopolizes. Facebook irritates and deprivatizes. The list goes on.

I love the internet. It could revolutionize communication as we know it. It could break boundaries, educate, and unite people from all over the globe.
I do not love the implicitly political space we have to navigate to use it.

Image source: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/insider/files/2014/11/social_media_strategy111.jpg