Daniel X 🍕Isn't it weird how the internet has made everyone more connected, but all we can see is a growing universal loneliness?
Anna Ka@danielx never alone but always on your own 😬
:two_hearts:Euphoria@danielx You know, I often thought that way, too, until discovering Mastodon. I've felt far less lonely since then, and I believe other lonely people I've connected with have too. At least I hope they have.
@Euphoria true, it could just be that we trick ourselves into wanting more and the friendships are in our hearts all along :)
@danielx Well, it's nice to be in touch with people that seem to share our interests, values & goals. Sure helps to keep conversation interesting, doesn't it?
@Euphoria for sure, though it's a careful balance to not accidentally get lost in an echo chamber. That's why Mastodon is really interesting to me right now, a large intersection of all kinds of people exploring the internet together
@danielx Nice, isn't it? It seems like a very special "place" at a special time in history. It'll be very interesting to see how it progresses. It's already changed so much since I joined about three weeks ago.
Kind of mind boggling!
moved to @@danielx I should also add that I've made a lot of long term good friends online, though most of them live far away from me now and I rarely see them. These relationships are real, though, and have greatly enriched my life over the years.
Celestine Chua✅@danielx There is a very high quantity of connections and influx of information (due to the low to no cost of spreading information), but the quality has decreased vastly. So much information and much of it bite-sized and surface in meaning, and that's why we can never get "fulfilled" from it. It's like fast food for the brain. I feel a lot of this has to do with how Facebook & conglomerates started taking hold of the internet in the past years, but that's another toot for another day.
@celes thinking of it like fast food is a great way to describe it, thanks for that insight!
@danielx My pleasure! :) I'm glad that I'm not the only one feeling that. And I like how you have a pizza icon next to your name :)
@celes I feel the pizza adds a certain level of authenticity to my words :P
Maybe all the alienation comes from #latestagecapitalism reaching farther and farther into our lives... Real friendship comes from the heart ❤
@danielx I definitely think so. The internet used to be free from capitalism + large companies' influence, and that was when the popular content was much deeper, same for relationships. Where we are today in the online world, I feel it's largely to do with conglomerates now coming online + their objectives (profit maximization) are not aligned with what's good for the user (value maximization in life). Same goes for Facebook.
@danielx I have written about this feeling of disconnectedness lately (https://personalexcellence.co/blog/disconnect/). It's a feeling I was also feeling about my home country, which I feel is a parallel to the issues I see in the online world.