I got my first taste of the internet and all it had to offer when I was just 12 years old. Since that time, the world inside our devices has drastically changed, and internet safety has gotten more important to parents and guardians. The new generation has child locks and specific apps that make sure they’re not exposed to things that would harm them.
That doesn’t change the fact that there’s an entire group of young adults who were the guinea pigs for the developing tech landscapes. Gen Z kids grew up using apps like Kik, IFunny, and YouTube, all of which were unmoderated, and unfit for our growing minds. Exposed on a daily basis to adult themes, when we likely should have been outside rolling in the grass, scraping our knees, and staying out until the streetlights came on.
None of it was probably good for us, but we can’t go back and change what we spent the fleeting years of childhood on.
For me, it started innocently. I was obsessed with The Hunger Games and wanted to find out more about the series online. I began exploring different communities and finding various people who shared a love for the books. Falling down the rabbit hole was a natural thing. I saw Hunger Games parodies on YouTube, watching hours of people playing Minecraft until I had to go to bed.
I would go to school and come home to sit in my room and play online. Never leaving my bed, never spending time with family or friends. Connecting to the internet and consuming content like it was a necessity, I had slowly become disconnected from the world. I can remember going to summer camp, and feeling like I’d cry when they took away my tablet, as all electronics were banned.
There was always a never-ending stream of content being added, and it’s likely what pulled me in. Every day there was something new for me to explore, spending my free time doing things my mother wouldn’t approve of, while she was in the next room. Our parents were unaware of just how dangerous the web was when we spent as much time on our devices as I did.
I can vividly remember the first time someone sent me a video of another person dying. Sitting in my bed, with wide eyes, clicking on a link I shouldn’t have. Watching in horror and shock.
People loved to spread videos like that. There were people who enjoyed sending disgusting content through various apps. And being so young, and so active, I was the perfect target for their sick pleasures, thinking it was funny to scare a bunch of people without consequence.
I was bullied, manipulated, and exposed in the early days of social media, and the boom of handheld internet usage.
Even after experiencing all of that. I can’t help but admit that there were positives of being stuck on the internet. It wasn’t all dark and consuming.
Apps like Wattpad introduced me to the joys of writing, and reading users’ stories late into the night. Their words inspired me to tap away at my own stories, even if they never gained much attention. I would make up the craziest premises and publish them. The writing was never that good because I was 12 and very inexperienced, but each story pushed me to get better. I was proud of myself.
Back then, I lived out in the middle of nowhere, and it was depressing. Not being able to play with neighbors because there were none, only getting the social stimulation from school definitely didn’t help anything. So, coming home to have millions of possibilities of connecting with people online, I would be lying if I said the internet was all bad.
I personally met some great people who were my age, going through the same things I was. We chatted every single day, miles apart and through the screen. I didn’t have many close friends in real life, but online, I had a huge group of people I talked to for hours. Playing video games, discussing television shows, and joking around.
To this day, almost ten years later, I still talk to them. Seeing their lives through social media, getting into relationships, graduating high school, and starting jobs. Despite how traumatic the early days of the internet were, they turned out pretty great, and I’m glad to have known them.
Even as I am now, I have a close relationship with the internet. I have years of experience with everything social media, and the world wide web, and being online since puberty has helped me with the fast-changing world of technology. I wouldn’t have that if I didn’t log on one day.
Maybe I would have changed it all if I could go back.
Maybe I would have limited my time, put restrictions on my devices, and maybe I wouldn’t have dove so deep into topics that I had random internet trolls sending me nasty messages.
But one thing I know is for sure.
The internet made me, and so many other people my age who we are today.