The Practice of Being Human Online

A couple of days ago, I received a text from a friend. I hadn’t heard from her in about a year. She didn’t give a list of reasons why she hadn’t been in touch, to be fair, I hadn’t reached out to her either. She simply told me what was going on and asked if I could pray for her and her family. Why did she send this text to me, a person she only chats with once a year? And why did I say yes? After all, not only had we not texted in a year, but I had also known her for over a decade and had never actually met her in person. 

Yes, you read that right. I said this was a friend and that I have known her for a decade. But also, we have never seen each other face to face. And yet, when she was in turmoil, she texted me because she knew I would understand.  Years ago, we met in an online recovery community (pre-Facebook, y’all!) for people in various phases of eating disorder/body dysmorphia recovery. Through our support group chats, just messages in a secure forum (no Zoom!), our community got to know parts of each other’s lives that were too hard to share with people who just didn’t get it. And there were many.  My friend and I stayed connected, eventually connecting on Facebook and Instagram, and later exchanging phone numbers. I think of her when her favorite sport comes on TV, or her favorite celebrities. I also think about her when I am having a rough day looking at myself in the mirror. I know she is there if I need her, and she knows I am here too. That is why she sent the text, and it’s why I still answer over a decade later. 

When I think about the best of what online communities can be, I think about my friend and the community that brought us together. A lifeline when we both needed it most. This is why I also began sharing my caregiving journey online. I needed a lifeline then too. I needed to know I wasn’t alone and so I took to the socials as the kids say. (My kids have informed me they don’t say this, but I digress.)

 I started working in and around social media in 2014. At first,  I found it a useful way to connect with family and friends who I didn’t always get to see in person. But as I began to use social media more, as most of us did, it became a tool that allowed me to connect with people around the world who were in the same phase of life, whether that was being a young mom, training to become a Pilates instructor, going through challenges with my mental health, or experiencing life as a caregiver for my mom.   While there may have been the occasional negative comment, things were mostly kind or at least cordial. This was probably because the people who were connected with me knew me personally, had developed a genuine relationship with me, and understood that I was a real person. 

Then, as the spaces grew, the connections became more widespread, and we as a society began feeling more comfortable "posting" about our lives, or at least the parts of them we wanted people to know about, something slowly shifted. What used to be connecting with real family and friends online became connecting with people online and, in some cases, becoming real friends with them, like my friend from the recovery community and me. 

It all seemed like the promise of social media was being fulfilled. We were told, sold, if you will, the promise that social media would bring us together, connect us with friends and family. Then we were encouraged to branch out and join communities or "groups" on Facebook to connect with people around the world who share similar interests or concerns. At the same time that we were navigating what it meant to be part of an online community, whether in the groups or the community at large, Instagram came along, which focused our attention on aesthetics. At first, we may have shared as we did with our friends and family on Facebook (my kids still laugh at my initial Instagram posts), but eventually we started curating more and more. Not in the sense of just being discerning when posting (like maybe not posting about your fight with your spouse), but a more deliberate sculpting of what "life" is like for us.

This is where the shift happens. Some of us curated in the sense that we tended to only share about one aspect. (I almost exclusively talk about the caregiving part of my life.) Others share online as if it is a group chat with friends. (No shade, it just is.) Then "branding" exploded. Not just that our feeds were now filled with advertisers trying to connect with us, but that we, too, began branding ourselves, even if unconsciously, as influencers, even if just in our own spaces. While, on the one hand, the sphere of influence has always existed in the real-world part of our lives, and it does stand to reason that this would translate into our online environments, there is something different about it. People we know in the real world- our neighbors, people in our book club, or the ones we play tennis and golf with- they know us. Maybe not EVERYTHING about us, but they see us on good days and bad days. We talk to them about multiple facets of our lives, even if not all of them. Online, we are connected with some of those people, but many of the people we are sharing our lives with only see what we post. They don't really know us. Even if we think they do. Even if THEY think they do. And here's where it gets tricky, or icky is probably a better word for it.

As we share our lives on social media, people who do not know us feel entitled to critique and correct us. Sure, those comments are sprinkled in between some kind words and encouragement, but we see the bad stuff more and more. I see this all of the time with caregivers online. When I first started sharing my story, I was one of a very few. Now, the online caregiver space has grown and more and more caregivers are hopping online to share their experience. Mainly because their situation is so complex and they want to know that they aren't alone. Many of them are not asking for advice or judgment. They just want to be heard.  

And what do we do as a society? We go to the comments to give our two cents. Now we might ask, "Do people posting online open themselves up to judgment?" Perhaps, but my point here is that the comments are becoming increasingly harsh and often verbally abusive. Why?

I think it is because we've forgotten that people online are real people, and that what we say and do online IS part of who we are in real life. In other words, we have forgotten that we are humans too. We want a “community” but fail to live up to what that really means. There are three main characteristics of a  community: 

A shared identity where members feel a strong connection to one another, mutual support in sharing resources and working toward common goals, and agreed-upon standards of behavior and norms.

And here is where online community gets tricky. Yes, most of the social platforms have standards, such as they are, but what is appropriate to share with a bunch of caregivers, may not be as appropriate for a recovery or parenting online community. And when we are attempting to connect in large online spaces, we can’t have the same level of mutual support or agreed upon standards. 

That is not to say the social media platforms don’t play a role in building online community. In many cases, that is where it begins. We gather there and connect with others with similar experiences and interests.  You may have 10k followers, but that is not the size of your community. You may have a viral post because 1million+ people saw it, but that isn’t your community either.  Who in your online community can you text or call, knowing they will understand and offer support?  Who do you dm when you feel like you can’t make it through the day? And who will respond? That is your true community. 

Another important aspect of community, not mentioned above, is the gift of reconciling when things go wrong. Humans are imperfect. We say and do things in real life that we regret. We say and do things online that we regret. The difference is that in real life, you can go to your neighbor, your friend, your family member and have a conversation. We can communicate, face-to-face, ask for forgiveness, clarify our point, and build a deeper relationship. On social media, we have an onslaught of rude and abusive comments from people we do not know, who may not, in fact, be real people, and there is no way to have the conversation to clarify, explain, or listen to the other person's point of view, if they even have one. You've heard the terms "keyboard warrior" and "online troll" and we think about some weirdo in a basement somewhere.  But the truth is we are talking about a mom in a carline, a Bible study leader after church, a group of friends sitting around the free weights after a workout...or another exhausted caregiver who feels guilty already and unconsciously wants someone else to feel guilty too so they can feel less alone. I think the separation of our "real selves" from our "online selves" was a predictable byproduct of giving us the perception that we can curate a life, we can hide our humanness, and still create community and connections.

Don't get me wrong. I do believe you can have real connections with people online, but there has to be the type of connection that allows for enough vulnerability to say, “I was wrong, please forgive me.” And have that person, who also thinks of you as a person, not just a character on social media, to say, “Yes, I forgive you,” or “I still need some time,” or any myriad of real-life answers one might give. So when I talk about my caregiver community, I am not talking about everyone who sees my posts. I am talking about the ones who have taken the time to connect with me beyond whatever my talking point of the day is. 

I don't want to walk away from my online community, but I feel increasingly like having an online presence, whether it is professional or lifestyle or just us trying to connect with the world, requires a diligence in the practice of humanity. We should not have to practice being human, but the more we have offloaded our minds and thoughts to the online world, the more we have lost our connection with our own humanity.

In order to make sure we are all on the same page when using the term "humanity," here is the definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "compassionate, sympathetic, or generous behavior or disposition: the quality or state of being humane.” [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humanity]

There are other definitions as well based on religious and academic settings, but they all have something in common: the idea that humans have, to some degree, something that, oh, I don't know, let's say technology, doesn't have: the ability to be compassionate, show sympathy, and offer charity.

Over the last couple of decades, we have gone from treating our online spaces as ways to connect with our real-life family, friends, and neighbors to a place where we say and do things we would never do in real life. Except that many of our online lives have oozed, like an infection, into our daily existence. We snap photos, walk and talk, and record everything so we can prove to people online that we are living. But we edit, curate, and clip. (I am not talking about people who do this as part of marketing a business, etc. I am talking about the average person.) We also start saying things to our phone screens that we would never say to someone standing next to us. 

This isn't all bad. In my case, and the case of many other caregivers, not many people in my life understood what I was going through or how they should respond, but my online community did. However, I began to notice that I would rather share my thoughts and feelings with people online than with my own husband or friends. Instead of addressing the bigger question of why I didn't feel comfortable sharing my feelings with those who most loved me in real life, I turned to the screen. 

Yes. An online presence, especially the community spaces I have been in, has been a great blessing to me, but it is also costing me the ability to communicate with vulnerability with those closest to me. While I do get pushback online, it is easy for me to distance myself from the comments. I don't know them; they don't know me. But if I am vulnerable with my family, will I be able to have the hard conversation?

Note the second-to-last sentence there, "I don't know them. They don't know me." What have I done there? I have removed their humanness (let's just give the caveat that we are talking about comments from real people). I am as guilty as the next person of both wanting to be treated as a human online and of easily falling into the trap of not recognizing others' humanity. And I am trying! What about those of us (I am including myself because I am sure I have done it too) who scroll through our feeds only for the purpose of being entertained and validated? When we see something that frustrates us or makes us uncomfortable, it is tempting to hop straight to the comments to give our opinion, argument, or "advice," and many of us do, with little or no context of what the person is talking about. Furthermore, we do not feel a sense of responsibility behind our comments. Like, who is going to know?

We know. And we should care. Whether we want to believe it or not, our humanity extends from our real life and into every part of our thoughts, words, and deeds. Even the online ones. When we pretend it doesn't, we diminish the perception that we are humans, that we matter, and that our humanity is what makes us unique in this world. And that makes it easier for some to believe we can be easily replaced. But we cannot. YOU cannot be replaced. You are valuable and worthy online and off.