11:07am June 1, 2014

“

Dear Therapists, Doctors and Counselors everywhere: I regret to inform you, but the Internet is real.

Yes, friendships on the internet are real. Bonds are formed. Common interests are explored. Support is mutually given and recieved.

Romance on the internet is real. People meet through any forum from Eharmony to World of Warcraft. Then, for whatever reason, the relationship blossoms and they decide to fly half way around the world and get married.

The bullying, harassment and terrorism is also real. When we recieve messages that tell us to go kill ourselves, we genuinely feel sad and bad because those messages are real. When we recieve threats that someone is going to rape us or burn our house down, we feel the amount of stress and fear that is appropriate for recieving those threats face-to-face.

The internet is real. As technology becomes integrated with our lives, it will only become ever more real. No, we can’t just “quit the internet” to focus on our “real lives” because, sadly, the internet is real. As employers increasingly ask us to put our resumes online, as jobs require us to have smartphones and email contact 24/7, as universities offer correspondance courses, and goods and services are paid for with Paypal or Bitcoin, the internet has proven itself to be a very real form of interaction.

The Internet is like real life, with good people and bad people and job opportunities and scams all rolled into one very new form of communication!

Please stop telling us to “just quit the internet” to solve our problems.

Thanks,
Young People Everywhere

”

(via nomorepuzzleprofits)

And on the other end of the screen is a real person.

Every single time.

Think about that before you decide to totally write someone off or treat them like crap based on Internet rumors.

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