“That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something… real; Real love, real friends, real body parts.” What Jess Scott says here is how I have felt about the friendships and relationships that are made through technology. I have had many sad and lonely experiences online, and I’ve had plenty of happy and enjoyable experiences as well. But overall, I feel like these toys that we get sucked into and revolve our lives around, and even sometimes worship make life so sad. The friendships and the bonds that can be made with people over the internet, aren’t always what they seemed to be. For me, the friends I had made online, and the amount of time I had put into keeping those friendships, at that time in my life they seemed so real, so alive. But in the end, it was a waste. I felt used by technology by losing what I worked so hard to have.
Computer gaming was my escape from reality. The game I would play is called World of Warcraft. It let me enjoy a perfect life and create a character that I was in charge of; it resembled me, but a better me. Because of how I made myself out to be in this game, other people online were interested in me. I could show my strengths and hide my weaknesses from them. Unless I wanted to, I didn’t have to show anyone who I really was. Eventually this game became my idol. I lived my life according to what was happening in this game online. Being homeschooled made playing this game, and doing nothing else, much easier for me than anyone else. I could skip my assignments and enjoy playing my game all day and all night, as long as I wished. Friends in real life never existed for me; because of this, the people I would play with online started to play a big role in my life. They were a part of my routine throughout each day.
All I wanted was to be online with my friends. I could not wait to wake up the next day. I would spend hours speaking with everyone and complete challenges online with these people. I will always remember one person that I really bonded with and spoke to as if he were actually my true friend by my side. His online name was Phaye. Sometimes Phaye and I would spend nights not even playing our game, but rather just talking about life; and it was great. I really thought I had bonded with this person online. Eventually, we both were getting more and more busy with our responsibilities in the real world. Weekends were the only time that we both could manage to speak and hang out in our online world. Not long after, speaking with Phaye came to an end. We stopped talking and lived our own lives offline. It was surprisingly easy to be done talking to each other after communicating so often for so long. I think that is because being friends with someone in real life creates a more trusting bond than online, and you become more vulnerable to other people in real life and not so much to friends online.
My video gaming came to an end not long after I stopped talking to Phaye. I didn’t have the budget to keep my game subscription going and had no choice but to quit playing and live a life of my own in the real world. After that, being on a computer to talk with others and post things online about myself has become so sad. I don’t feel any connection with people online anymore. It doesn’t matter what people think of me online. It all is so unimportant to me now. So… unreal.
