Paul F. Davis| Photo Editor

The age of information is upon us and we are wholly unprepared for it. This newly dawned age is made possible via the internet, this is leading to a change wherein the concept of reality and truth are being challenged which has lead to the tarnishing of the user’s mind.

The internet instantaneously connects us to all of the people that exist on it through social media. But this sort of “connection” is not what humans have been evolutionarily programmed to thrive on. Humans need un-posed face-to-face contact in order to be healthy and well-adjusted, and our current internet-based social heading is not giving us that. The faces you see on the internet are not real; they are carefully choreographed to make the poster feel the best they can in the competition that is social media — a competition that makes others feel less because they don’t have that thing or could never have that experience that they are looking at.

This lack of real connection is starting to be reflected in the rates of mental illness seen in the most internet-integrated of people: the young. This comes about due to the constant comparison of them to the user, the loss of sleep associated with late night technology usage and the further isolation of the already socially isolated. This leads to an increase in mental illness. Young people, aged 18-25 years, are the most likely to have mental illness and are 45% more likely to have mental illness than those aged 50 and over, according to research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Social interaction isn’t the only thing that has been tainted by the touch of the internet. Sex has been changed for countless people because of the ease of access to instant sexual stimulation. For most, their idea of sex has been shaped by porn, which people are being exposed to at younger and younger ages. Porn gives the unprotected young mind a mindset that says if your body does not look a certain way you are not normal or good enough.

Sex is not porn, sex is physical give and take between consenting adults that will be great sometimes and just okay at other times, and the internet doesn’t show that. The internet has reduced sex and all of its intricacies to an eight minute video on Pornhub.

The internet is a space made for anyone and anything but we are not made for the internet. So realize that it is okay and not weird to separate yourself from it because you don’t have to be defined by it, even when you are surrounded by it.

Contact the author at pfdavis14@wou.edu