By: kdm5565

I have to say, your post on your internet friends becoming your family was a view I had never heard. From my own personal account, I find it ironic that social media and the internet was created with the intention of bringing people together (like you, your wife and your family), but in reality it has done nothing but separate a lot of people. I think the unfortunate thing about the internet (and internet cookies) is that it feeds into our biases, which helps keep us separated, or only interacting with people who share the same bias as us. If you happen to click on a link to CNN all of a sudden your pages are bombarded with ads from other left wing news sources or political ads for candidates; and vice versa for right wingers. I also worry about the next generation and their mental health. We see so many people on the internet that looks like they have their lives together, but in fact don’t. Seeing the amount of insecurities kids have today makes me glad that I was slightly older when technology really peaked, and it also makes me glad that even when technology peaked my parents kept a tight lock on what I did and did not have access to. It’s not all negative though. Like you, I met one of my best friends thru the internet. I was an Au Pair in Germany and hoping to meet people my age; I was able to find an “Expat in Germany” facebook page near my city and ended up meeting some amazing people. Now every other year I go back to Germany to visit my Au Pair family and see my friends, and they often come to America to visit me too! Other countries that are less fortunate have also used the internet and social media to bring awareness to certain issues on an international level, and even in our own back yard protests have been formed. As with anything there are both positives and negatives, I just hope for the mental sake of the younger kids, the positives will heavily outweigh the negatives.