The Internet is an integral tool in our day to day lives that we have come to take for granted. For the younger generations, the Internet is omnipresent; they’ve never known life without it. My son, a GenY, came with me to my office many years ago, saw and was fascinated by an old typewriter I had on my shelf. He had trouble understanding that what was being typed wasn’t stored automatically or that he couldn’t edit, copy or paste the product!
Seldom do we take time to consider the vast brilliance, the scope and the reach of it, nor do we consider the ills afforded by the anonymity of being safely behind a screen. We are able to research anything, locate any place, watch videos, movies, listen to podcasts, search our ancestry, order food, find a date etc. and find immediate gratification for basically whatever we want nearly instantaneously. We are able to search the web from a device in the palm of our hand, we can communicate at any time with our family and friends across the entire world. The Internet has the astonishing capacity to educate us, connect us, and advance us.
As with everything wonderful, however, there is always a flip side. There are gross downsides to being anonymous, having a singular bully pulpit with no emotional connection and only our thoughts and feelings that we punch furiously into cyberspace. Opinions, my friends: the emotional regurgitation of whatever’s on our minds. People across the world from all socioeconomic levels, all social groups, all creeds, races, and sexual orientations, gravitate to the Internet, hide behind a screen name to attack the opinions of others, insult and berate their perceived foes, tear down governments, create inappropriate and often illegal materials and even anonymously pursue crimes on the dark web like human trafficking and illegal trade.
However, with the advent of the world pandemic that is Covid-19, we have seen a silver lining. The Internet has demonstrated a virtual lifeline for our personal and professional connection. It has proven to be invaluable to our humanity and need for connection. We find ourselves as the beneficiaries of this miraculous apparatus for connecting.
How We Misuse the Internet
The Internet, like many other things, is a tool in our social toolbox when you boil it down to the basics. This tool has such a massive capacity for good, but often falls way short of that. This tool can be used to build: relationships, technology, support systems, reputations, and community. At any instant, we can chat with our family members in different countries, put out beautiful digital content, or disseminate facts.
Yet, the Internet is, sadly, also used to destroy. Internet Trolls make it a pastime of perusing the web with the express purpose of sharing inflammatory, baiting, argumentative drama, and mistreating other humans.
This use of the Internet can lead to individual isolation: the inevitable comparisons on social media (we will never measure up to the one ‘perfect picture’ - taken 100 times to get JUST the right one), creating disparities between introverts and extroverts, and the notion of the "correct opinion" which invariably spirals out of control with neither check nor balance. Opinions, my friends.
We have effectively turned this tool for enriching debate, sharing thoughts, communications and constructive conversation into a place for judging books by their cover and reacting without sympathy or empathy. We don't deserve to have this beautiful, boundless tool for good when we use it to hurt each other.
The Covid-Era Internet
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
During the past few months, we have been required to pivot to assimilate to almost universal ‘stay at home’ orders. With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, it became essential to use the Internet in positive ways. Physical locations of businesses, restaurants, and meeting places closed, and to a great degree, the Internet was the only thread left connecting us. So many of us realized how fortunate we are as a community to have the Internet to check in on cherished sick family members and friends, receive local, national and international news updates, and continue to put music, art, writing, and other creative mediums into the world for a captive, stuck-at-home audience. We're able to fill prescriptions, manage our money, see our doctors, learn the facts about the Covid-19 virus, and understand the steps we can all take to fight it - all online! At a time when we can't go to the gym, we can take online exercise classes with real people; in a time when offices are closed, we can see our coworkers faces’ via Skype, Zoom, or other similar applications.
Perhaps it's because we are forced to fully rely on the Internet during the pandemic, perhaps because we are human beings and as such, REQUIRE interpersonal relationships and needed to be nimble to figure out creative ways to connect, or perhaps the emergence of a global pandemic refocused us on what is truly important, but there has been a marked shift from using the web to damage, to using it to create communities, bolstering those who are struggling with a kind word, and to work across the world on vaccines and medical advances.
Many families and friend groups are having dinner and playing games "together" more than when they had the option to do so in person. The screen, which once separated us and protected our nefarious intentions with anonymity, is now being used to showcase our personalities and personal brands, to bring us closer in ways we could not fathom in-person pre-Covid.
What's Next?
Right now, you can see the Himalayas from Punjab, India for the first time in years because pollution has cleared. Dolphins have been seen in the canals of Venice, Italy. Will this last once restrictions lift? In the same way, we wonder if we will take our new respect for the brilliant gifts of the Internet as opposed to the myriad of negatives with us into the post-Covid age. Future Image Group holds out hope that the lesson will stick. Let's use the lessons of the Covid excitement and apply the internet for connection, engagement, learning, and productive conversation.
Guidance for Constructive and Positive Online Interaction
The same principles from the FIG curriculum for in-person Interaction apply to the way you interact online.
Curiosity
Human beings are curious by nature. Access to the Internet has given us the world at our fingertips; and now, the Internet is a more powerful tool than ever. After all, it provides one of the only truly safe spaces for face-to-face interaction at this point. Applying true curiosity when talking with a person can still mean the start of a conversation, a connection, and a relationship, even though it’s online.
Networking
Networking is a mandatory skill for any professional, and very few people are actually taught how to do it, let alone how to do it well. Now, we face the added challenge of networking well when you can’t be physically in the same place as those you’re networking with. How can you develop interpersonal skills for our all-digital world IN our all-digital world?
Boundaries
Boundaries are fundamental in any relationship, personal or professional. In some ways, working in a remote workspace makes it easier to develop and maintain professional boundaries. On the other, with email always in our pocket, it can be hard to check out and take off of work when the day is over. Maintaining boundaries in the remote workspace is of the utmost importance.
Technology
The importance of face-to-face communication in business relationships is irrefutable, but technology is an incredibly important tool as well - now more than ever. It’s important to reflect and explore how technology has changed relationships and now, how it’s an essential part of face-to-face relationships as a whole.
Intention
To set the intention of how, when, and where we wish to interact is a key component to any professional relationship. Now, with limited human interaction, going into meetings and calls with intention is essential. How can you understand what conscious intentions are, and how can you apply intentional interactions in your remote workspace?
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety can be a powerful motivator for people to use technology to communicate. Now, technology is our main way to communicate, allowing social anxiety to grow unchecked. How can you use technology responsibly as a tool in your social anxiety toolbox without becomeing socially isolated during the Covid-19 Crisis?
Teasing Fact from Emotion
Have you ever received professional constructive criticism and taken it personally? Have you ever been on the other side of the equation - trying to help an employee grow by giving feedback that they take as an attack on their personal self? This kind of reaction in a professional space is common, and can stand in the way of employee growth, team morale, and office efficiency.