Visit any drug store and you’ll know—love, er Valentine’s Day—is in the air and on the shelves. It’s a good time to reflect on the changing nature of love in a digital world and the need to manage our digital relationships, in good situations, and bad.
It used to be that we would wait with baited breath for THE PHONE CALL. You know what I’m talking about: it’s been four days, why hasn’t he called?!?!??! Now we have relationship battles on the social web. Across this new landscape we hear: Why didn’t she return my text? Why hasn’t he added me as a Facebook friend or replied to my wall post!?!?!?! When can we change our status to “in a relationship?”
In 2011, it’s imperative to explore and manage our relationships online, not just for the trite issues that arise, but also for the more damaging relationship problems. I’m speaking of the manifestation of emotional, physical and sexual abuse online. I know we have a hard time talking about this, but we have to break that taboo.
Take text messaging, it’s an awesome tool to stay in touch with your honey. But it can also be used to insult, obsessively monitor and even stalk someone. On Facebook, a jealous partner can monitor who their boyfriend or girlfriend is talking to, inflaming possessive tendencies and even violating privacy.
Social media isn’t causing the problem, but it’s giving abusers another vehicle of power and control. So while the romantic in me says “send your love a Valentine,” if you think you or someone you know is being victimized, check out information from the That’s Not Love campaign. The Manitoba-based Canadian Red Cross campaign provides a lot of great information for youth and parents around recognizing the signs of abuse on and off-line, and what people can do to get help; because no one deserves to suffer in silence.
Valentine's Day campaign psa.