We all spend a good chunk of time online. For many of us, scrolling through our checklist of social media apps (i.e. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok) daily, from the moment we wake up, has become a normal thing to do. However, a new phrase has been floating around the internet, and it has inspired many rants and discussions online. The funny thing is, if you’ve heard of this term, you might just be… ‘Chronically Online‘.
What Does It Mean?
While the term ‘chronically online’ is still relatively new, it has gone viral on TikTok with hashtags like #chronicallyonline amassing over 80 million views. Chronically online describes those who spend so much time online it skews their sense of reality and hinders their ability to effectively communicate about topics like politics or social justice because they lack real-world experience. It’s usually used in conjunction with terms like ‘touch grass’, which is basically reserved for people who have lost touch with reality due to the excessive amount of time online. And before you say anything, no, it’s not the same as having a social media addiction.
To give you an example, in October of last year, a woman named Daisey Beaton tweeted about her personal life: “my husband and i wake up every morning and bring our coffee out to our garden and sit and talk for hours, every morning. it never gets old & we never run out of things to talk (about). love him so much.” Seems pretty normal, right? However, some people took the tweet in a completely unexpected way.
If you felt a sense of dread while reading about a woman’s daily routine with her husband, it’s possible that you might have been spending too much time online. The tweet was then flooded with replies like “Who has time to sit and talk for hours every day? Must be nice,” and “I’m happy for you, but it’s just a smug, self-satisfied bragging if it’s true. Your partner is most likely embarrassed by the tweet, or at least should be.” The phrase basically serves as a way to criticise others, even for situations which don’t necessarily call for that kind of reaction.
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Naturally, other people called out those replies with something along the lines of, you guessed it, “Touch some grass”. The irony here is; someone coming across and calling out chronically online behaviour most likely spends a good chunk of their time online themselves.
One of the reasons for this phenomenon is due to the hyper-fixation on being the “perfect” person with always the “right” opinions. It seems like everyone has something righteous to say, and everyone thinks that there is only one opinion that’s considered as “correct”. But, what most people fail to realise is that it’s normal to have opinions that don’t cater to every single person out there. There will always be controversial takes and problematic debates, but not everything can be fixed with a tweet or a comment calling them bad people for having a different viewpoint from you.
How To Stop Being Chronically Online
When you’re chronically online, your brain is rewired, so the way you interact with information is different. This is due to the excessive exposure to news and information, which are all presented in a way that limits any kind of critical thinking and nuance.
The quickest way to stop this habit would be to just delete all forms of social media and stop engaging with people you don’t know online. But, going completely cold turkey could be hard for some. So, instead, you can opt for a private account with only your close friends, and share your thoughts there instead. This will kill the urge to post an opinion online to get that surge of excitement when your reply gets a lot of engagement and likes, since people will no longer see what you’re posting.
While it’s nothing compared to having an open heated debate online about an issue, and it may even suck all the fun out of posting on social media, it will help you get out of that habit and mindset. Plus, there would be one less online debate on how having coffee in the garden with your husband is inconsiderate to other people.
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