Why is the Internet Mentally Ill?

This is the question I want to answer in this blog post. I’m sure you’ve noticed the magnitude of mentally disturbed people who habit the online world, initially, I would explain this phenomena by simply saying

 “well, where else would the mentally ill go? It’s easy to access a computer while in isolation in a basement.”

And though I don’t think that point is irrelevant, I don’t think that’s it. 

Get rid of the face of the person you spoke to last, remove their inflections, tones, body language, and other miscellaneous mannerisms, and replace it with an image they set (that may not be them, or anything at all), and text.

If you really think about it, the online version of peer to peer communication is devoid of the most important aspect of communication, the human. And this isn’t intentional, atleast to what I think. What makes talking to special is the connection our dumb brains have evolved to need, we want to feel seen, feel loved, and see that. You cannot tell if I’m smiling or aggressively crying based off the text I’m typing — unless i deliberately make it obvious.

Obviously this has been noticed and (to a poor degree) addressed, the whole existence of emojis are there to modernise the successor of it, kaoemoji, the text symbols that some guy someday thought they looked like faces in a specific order. Ex. :), (0o0);, so on, and they’re meant to show a general emotion, however, meaning is subjective, and human emotions cannot be expressed with a face, it needs context, and this response shows how much the conversation has been simplified, and flattened of its flawed humanity.

I’ve noticed, and you probably have too, the more online you are, the more deranged you get, why is that? What causes this spiral in manic despair when you’re just looking at microblogs on Twitter and short-form videos on Instagram, TikTok, or whatever app out there used to doomscroll. 

If I had to guess, it’s not only the lack of human interaction, but the faceless interaction. I saw a video on the topic of the dead internet theory the other day;

“The internet isn’t dead. It’s filled with humans talking to nobody.”

And I think this is how many chronic-users see the internet, when you see forum sites like 4chan you notice how devoid of “people” it seems, you see the worst people out there, posting about porn and smut like it’s nothing — it does something to you! 

The internet is so vast, that if you get unlimited time, you’ll find the bottom of the barrel, and the slog is so good you can’t let go, the dopamine rush of the wrong feeds into your mind like a parasitic ear worm, sometimes it seems like touching grass isn’t even worth it.

If you’re stuck at the bottom, I want you to look back and remember the smile you once had. Genuinely, it is that damn phone.

Now, I also want to tie this back in with the new generations collective depression and attention-deficit. This comes from someone who is [probably] depressed; having no motivation at your formative years is the biggest sign of a generation being fucked.

Covid gave society collective trauma, everyone is a bit more desperate, and who can blame us? Putting us in isolation for a year— that will fuck people up! That’s why 2020 was so weird. I think this certainly adds people to the barrel of internet addiction.

I think this was quite messy, but I think I got my point across, there’s lots of factors that also effect the mental illness of the chronically online, and I want to hear if you have any thoughts about it. 

Take care, and touch grass, you need it.