Every week, there’s a new fear-mongering article about kids and teens growing up online. Smartphones are the death knell for civilization. Kids these days are worse than our generation — which every generation has said for centuries, but this time it’s true! No doubt, there are many legitimate concerns about developing minds being fed a steady diet of social media and short-form videos. But I have spent most of my life glued to a screen, I’m grateful I was able to grow up online. It made me a better person, a better writer, and a better reader.
I was a pretty well-behaved child, and most of the conflict I had with my mother was her struggling to keep me to only one hour a day spent on the computer. I still have a birthday card where she gifted me an extra hour of internet time. Every waking moment, I wanted to be on Neopets. Sure, I loved — and still love — fantasy animals, but I spent most of my time on the message boards. There, I talked to people around the world who were obsessed with the same fantasy series I was. We roleplayed characters from the books, which both gave me practice as a writer and introduced me to queer community for the first time, which is what led to me recognizing my own queerness.
It turns out, Neopets didn’t want a ton of gay roleplaying on their message board, so my friends and I created our own. Together, we built an elaborate original fantasy world and roleplayed within it. This was a whole new way to engage with stories, and it further honed my writing — sure, it’s completely embarrassing in retrospect, but what do you expect from a 14-year-old? On these message boards, I developed more confidence in my writing abilities, and I formed supportive friendships that carried me through adolescence.
As an anxious child, these communities were a lifeline. They let me form connections with people in a safe environment, where my social anxiety was lessened. They also helped to combat my anxiety about being alone: if my mom was out of the house, that meant I had the computer to myself! Slowly, I was able to overcome my (irrational) fears about break-ins or any other terror my mind usually spun up when left to its own devices.
My new confidence in my writing led me to Everything2, a writing community that kind of resembled Wikipedia if you squinted, but from a first-person perspective. I thrived there, getting praise and constructive criticism from adults who treated me as a peer. One encouraged me to start writing for magazines, giving me step-by-step instructions on how to get started. The idea of someone thinking my writing was worth paying for was far too intimidating at the time, but it lodged in my head. I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to apply for Book Riot if I had never gotten that message.
The feedback I got online was often much more helpful and specific than what I got in school — and who can blame those English teachers, because how can you give detailed feedback on that many essays? Growing up online made me a better and more confident writer, and it also made me a better reader.
At the same time that I was flexing my writing muscles, I was also joining online bookish communities. I fell in love with Tumblr, where I could celebrate (and mourn) my fandoms with other people who were just as enthusiastic. I started following dozens of book blogs, and then I started my own. My entire experience with queer books has been thanks to recommendations from readers on social media and in blogs; especially when I was first searching for queer books, I didn’t have a lot of in-person resources, and I didn’t have the confidence to ask a librarian.
Those bookish communities also taught me about the importance of diversifying my reading, and they introduced me to new favourite authors. BookTube especially felt like a giant book club of people enthusiastically talking about their favourite reads and teaching each other about how to find them. During the years I made BookTube videos, I felt like a part of the conversation, and I loved the interactions I’d have in the comments (for the most part).
Now, I spend most of my waking hours looking at a screen (sorry, Mom!), and I’m glad. I get to be a professional book nerd! All that time I spent online helped to build the skills that got me my dream job, and I’m grateful for it. I’ve had negative experiences online, but those pale next to what I’ve gained. Getting to see first-hand perspectives from people around the world has made me a more empathetic, caring, and knowledgeable global citizen. Communing with people who have my same irrepressible enthusiasm for books has made me a better reader. And practicing my writing for a wide audience has made me a more confident writer — which is what paved the way for me to be able to write and edit professionally.
I haven’t even gotten into the many other reasons I’m grateful to have access to the technology I do — I would spend many more hours of my life lost and wandering without Google Maps or its equivalent, and setting reminders on my phone is the only way I remember anything.
It’s easy to romanticize the past and fearmonger about kids these days, but it’s worth acknowledging everything that’s gained from this technology, too. So many more young people have become passionate readers because of TikTok. The average person is reading and writing much more than at any other time in history because of the internet. We’re able to access more books, more cheaply than ever before, and marginalized voices who have been shut out of the publishing industry have begun to break through with a combination of self-publishing and social media.
Personally, I think there’s never been a better time to be a reader.