Building Healthy Digital Ties.
Relationships are part of our life; family, friends, and other types of relationships we keep have roles and impact they play on our lives. It’s always great when we see these people regularly. We can have a physical chat, hangout, and do other stuff together, but it’s definitely a different story when we stay millions of miles away from them.
I remember a particular time when we always scheduled a call time with family abroad because it wasn’t the internet or smartphones era. Even the old small phones weren’t available, and it made keeping in touch very challenging, but it’s all different now since almost everyone has access to the internet directly or indirectly, and keeping up with our relationships has become easier.
It’s amazing how technology has helped us maintain connections beyond places we can access physically, but with all the chats and posts, keeping relationships healthy in the digital space requires lots of effort because we don’t just maintain old connections only. At least, we can say old connections know us very well, but what happens to the new ones?
So many of us have been able to make new friends we might never have to see and definitely want to stay in touch with these strangers for different reasons, which can be challenging if we don’t put effort into making the relationship a healthy one. As difficult as it might look, I have my ways of maintaining a healthy digital relationship, and they are really effective.
I always start with defining what my relationship with someone would be because that’s where many people get it wrong. We overhype things, or should I say create impossible expectations around people, which makes us feel like, oh, we are friends already, whereas that’s not the case.
There was a time I skipped this step, and the person’s reaction to me wasn’t just cool. I felt pretty bad and had to call myself back to order immediately. It took time before we got back on track, and I blamed myself for everything. The importance of defining your digital relationship while it’s still fresh is very important because it will determine a lot of things as the relationship gets older.
For safety reasons, I am always careful with the information I share in my digital relationships. It’s sad so much evil and so many atrocities are happening in the digital space, and people are falling victim every blessed day.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s that we aren’t learning from people’s mistakes, but it became clear to me that a lot of people don’t define their relationships; that’s why they spill things they shouldn’t do online.
I made a new friend a few years after registering on Facebook. She’s not a Nigerian, and we’ve been friends since 2011. At the beginning of our conversation, she was always asking personal questions, but I have my way of changing the subject of discussion.
She always said I didn’t trust her, but that wasn’t the case. I just felt it wasn’t a smart thing to just put everything about myself to someone I just met online. We communicated from time to time and slowly built the trust. It’s been 14 years, and we’re still good friends.
Dishing out your info without defining your relationship can backfire very quickly because you don’t know who is who, especially with new connections in the digital space.
I ensure to set boundaries despite steadily having honest conversations because I have seen the consequences of not setting boundaries in digital relationships.
There was a big aunty who almost lost her relationship back then because she didn’t set boundaries. She accepted a friend request from this guy online, and they always communicated briefly every day. It got to a time this stranger started calling her a pet name; she felt it was nice.
The stranger felt comfortable and started sending her pictures of himself every now and then. He went to the point of sending nudes, and it was too late for her to condemn it because the husband already saw them. It took God’s intervention to keep that marriage, and I have learned quite well from them.
I set boundaries, carefully choosing words to use and even time when we communicate due to time differences.
Finally, I relate with anyone in the digital space with respect because respect is reciprocal. I will be very offended if someone disrespected me whether physically or virtually, so it’s wrong for me to disrespect someone as well.
Being respectful doesn’t just earn you respect only; it strengthens the bond and boosts trust people have in you.
Despite the fun and opportunities present in the digital space, there are so many harms flying around as well, so we must be careful. People hide behind their phones and PCs to cause havoc, yet extending a friendly hand towards you because they know you can’t see them.
We should never be too overexcited to meet people at the expense of our safety or well-being, and until we are sure of who is behind that device on the other side, we must share less while doing more of the listening.
I totally agree with you. We need to be careful whenever we are making new relationships with people across the Cyber verse. It has turned to a den of lions now and quite risky
My sister, look at the case of people who met their end by going deep into online relationships. They trusted quickly, getting into those relationships and it backfired.
Anything that has to do with the digital space requires maximum caution to avoid regrets.
Yes, I can recall a lot of cases where girls fell into the hands of ritualists unbeknownst to them.
It is well
I think the internet made it worse because with small data, you can easily call people. The internet allows you to reach people at any time and any day. Unlike the old days when we all relied heavily on regular calls. You'd think twice before calling anyone unnecessarily.