Making sure that friends don’t become enemies
It is easy to make online friends on social media—or whatever you call them. But this poses risks. Frank words on Safer Internet Day 2025, which will be celebrated tomorrow, 11 February.
As a very communicative person, I spend a lot of time on my smartphone. But social media can also offer less talkative people opportunities to friend others and share ideas.
There are dating sites for those looking for the love of their life, and then there are sites for those looking to connect with like-minded people. It is relatively easy for children or students to make new friends. Adults who move to another city, for example, often find making friends more difficult. Especially if you are not the type to join a sports club or a class or cannot find anyone at work or in the congregation with whom you are on the same wavelength.
Even if you get up the nerve to accept an invitation, you probably will not end up asking the person you are having a casual chat with in the kitchen, “Do we want to be friends?” If, on the other hand, you use an app where everyone who is registered is also looking for friends, everything is clear from the start, and it is easy to start a conversation. Even for more exotic hobbies and areas of interest, there are channels and groups on the internet where you can connect with like-minded people.
Shared joy is double joy
Social media allows you to interact and share experiences. When you share your photos or favourite songs others can decide for themselves whether they want to look at all the pictures or not.
Even people with whom you have not been in touch for a long time are stimulated to engage in an uncomplicated way by posting a comment on the photo or song. Even if you don’t react immediately, you stay up to date and can respond to the other person’s posts the next time you actually meet them in the real word.
Those who share a lot can lose a lot
Sharing, however, is not always good. For example, if you are contacted by seemingly nice strangers, they may turn out to be scammers who create false profiles in order to obtain data or photos of other people, which they then place in a false context and use to blackmail their victims.
But not only such false friends can cause suffering. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor, has found that anxiety disorders, depression, self-mutilation, and suicide among students have increased since 2011. When you see your friends’ perfect photos, it is likely that you are going to compare yourself with them. Better and better filter settings make it possible for everyone to look as if they have had a professional make-up job done.
Your own reflection quickly becomes your enemy. Although there are awareness campaigns that are designed to show up the grave impact of these filters and encourage people to show their natural beauty online, it does not stop at appearances.
Not every filter is visible
Nowhere is it easier to put up a perfect facade for one’s friends and colleagues than on social media—even for those who do not post glossy photos of themselves. Constantly seeing the smiling and perfect photos of your friends’ families and their exciting activities can create pressure: “Why does everyone have such a perfect family?” or: “How can they have so much energy when all I want to do after work is eat and go to bed?”
Let’s not forget that photos are deliberately selected snapshots that hardly say anything about the reality happening around these moments. Instead of taking this content as truth and a benchmark, we should rather be happy that our friends are sharing their happy moments with us.
Who I always follow
Self-awareness is the first step towards improvement. Nevertheless, I will certainly not always be able to maintain a healthy approach to social media in the future. There will certainly still be situations in which I would like to put my smartphone far away because bad news or reports about conflicts seem to overwhelm me. That is why I do not ever want to forget one thing: there is someone I want to follow forever because His influence on me is entirely good, His content is pure truth, and He will never kick me off His list of friends, even if I make a mistake in life: Jesus.
Safer Internet Day is an initiative by the European Union that has been observed annually since 2004 and is now celebrated in over 180 countries.
Photo: Joao – stock.adobe.com