Internet: pros and cons in the affective relationships

With the influence of the mass media, values that used to take centuries or decades to be modified now change on a daily or a weekly basis. The future becomes the present and the present becomes the past faster and faster. We live in a period of transition and the rules of social, affective and professional behavior have changed just as quickly. One of the most obvious items of suh changes that raises many opinions pros and cons, is the Internet.

The internet has become an omnipresent force in people’s everyday lives, creating a new approach to human relations, changing the way people connect with each other. The social networks accessed through computers, smartphones or tablets, occupy an increasing space in modern individual life. People spend more and more time, relating to each other through social networks: posting photos of their daily life and making comments about others, talking on real time or texting. Communication has become so fast and easy that without leaving home, affective relationships are established in minutes. With a “click” one can choose or delete friends and lovers. Subject to the vulnerability of one’s own emotional interpretations – a “poke”, not poked back, a “like” not given or without a comment, or a request not immediately answered – can cause great discomfort, and can lead to different levels of emotional distress.

There is the urgency for rapid responses, which may cause, in seconds, a feeling of inclusion or exclusion from the relationship. Everything depends on the availability and interest of those who are there, communicating virtually. The possible problems or difficulties in human relations, should not fall due to the use of one or other internet application. The internet tools are a means of and not an end to searching and building of possible relationships in the real world.