Ramona Crasto
Ramona Crasto

The dawn of the internet has made the world an easier place to live in. Everything we need or want is one click away, from information to shopping. Just like air, food, water and shelter, the internet has managed to make a place for itself on our basic necessity list. While the internet is everything we need it has also made us its slave in ways that are turning out to be very dangerous.

The power it has over us is astonishing. One single tweet can start a war. One single post can start riots and one single link can convince a person to end his life. Yes, I am talking about games such as the Blue Whale Challenge and the Mariyam App. While the internet has made us smarter, it has also made us dumb. We blindly follow and agree to anything and everything that seems to be going around on the internet. It's like we are hypnotized.

By what I have read so far, it seems that teenagers play such games for thrill and excitement while others find it to be their escape door from their depressed life. It is sad that people find death to be the only option to escaping their problems and reality. Virtual reality is slowly becoming our reality. We are judged by the pictures we upload, likes we receive and number of people that follow us. In a world like this, we need to be smart enough to know the right from wrong and snap out of the illusion that there isn't a life outside these apps. A game cannot let you decided whether you need to live or die.

We cannot take the coward's way out because we think we cannot handle certain problems. We are dumb enough to fall into this pit from which there is no escaping but we are dumber if we don't even try. I agree social media makes our life entertaining but we can always separate it from our real lives. This is a line we all need to draw, especially young teenagers who think their life revolves around Instagram and Facebook. Maybe, we cannot share everything with our parents but I do not believe that there isn't a way out of the problems that we go through.

This era that we are living isn't like the 60s pr 70s when you had 10 occupations to choose from or limited education concentrating on a subject you didn't even like. Today, you can do what you love, you can choose a career you are passionate about. Family and friends are real. The ones who listen to every detail that you say, they are real. The ones who check on you every night before bed and provide you with a meal every day, they are real.

These are the people worth living for... not those who laugh at your flaws and call you by names in the comment section. Life is hard, for some school homework is too much to bear, for some relationships are too hard to handle, for some straight A's are just impossible to get and for some work load has burdened and broken their back. At such low times in life games like such bring thrill to our boring and unpleasant lives luring us to end it because there isn't anything left for us to do.

Life is a rollercoaster, and sometimes you just want to give up and hide behind games using it as a reason to escape from our problems. If you are not living the life that you want, you fight for that life. We aren't humans if we cannot try one last time. Technology sure has evolved but so have we to know the wrong from the right and how precious our life is.

By Ramona Crasto

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