The internet is a intense place, I don’t think anyone would argue that. You get the perfectly curated views of life and you get anger and intense viewpoints.

There hardly seems to be anything else.

Mid-way views, deep rational thinking, and realistic images are hard to find, but we’ve become numb to the fact that they’re missing. We’re feeding on that content and nothing else. It seems to go over our head that the internet is completely dramatized. The politics are more intense. The tragedies are expanded upon. Conspiracy theories are fed. And perfect lives are staged for praise.

We fall down rabbit holes and don’t realize that the internet is changing our views, but even more so, we don’t seem to realize that the rabbit holes we’re in don’t reflect real life. The internet will make you believe that the world is falling apart, but it’s not. If we go outside we can see that opposite sides come together in hard times and are polite to each other in the grocery store check out. We can also see that those who have perfectly frames lives are still chasing their screaming kids around and getting frizzy hair in the rain. We realize that the front we’ve been seeing, both the good and the bad, are completely overblown.

They’re dramatized almost to the point they are fake, but the problem is, the more people spend time down these rabbit holes, on these sites, following these type of posters, the more real these viewpoints and lifestyles seem. It creates dangerous thoughts in those who believe the worst in everything. It makes them more likely to believe crazy lies and to spread hate and fear. But it also creates dangers for those who believe the best side of social media too, it creates a game of comparison that leave them depressed that they cannot reach what they believe is a possible ideal.

All in all the internet has been changing the way a lot of us think, and its not being talked about enough. There can be a lot of danger in scrolling and a lot of things we don’t think of as propaganda can be. It’s time we start noticing what is being blown out of proportion and really take the drama down a notch. I did it by cleaning out of my social media feed. Some people do it by simply keeping a level head. Whatever you do it’s important to know  that most of what you see online isn’t real life.