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Chronically Online Kyle Van Zeumeren The internet is becoming more and more an integral part of the lives of adolescents. Huge parts of their social interaction comes from social media and other online interactions. While the ‘normal’ amount of time spent online continues to increase, there is a category beyond the normal amounts: chronically online. The term chronically online is often used interchangeably with the slightly more favourable term ‘Extremely Online’ or the even less favourable term ‘Terminally Online’. These terms all tend to refer to people who spend a huge portion of their time online, and care a significant amount about the things that happen online. They need to be up to date on the latest trends and happenings particularly involved with internet culture. This includes a huge amount of slang and language to the point of moving towards a new dialect. These dialects can be localized to different sub categories of online people, not all chronically online people speak the same dialect. People who are chronically online typically sacrifice social interaction ‘in real life’ (IRL) in order to continue to cultivate their online experience. Chronically online people tend to also not care about anything other than their internet life (Urban Dictionary, 2021). They often lose touch with the outside world, learning a dialogue of language that does not otherwise spill into the rest of the world. There is irony in the use of the term as it is mostly used by younger people, who themselves could be seen as chronically online to older outsiders (Al-Heeti, 2021). A lot of the documentation of Chronically Online people is made by other heavy or frequent users of platforms such as Tiktok. Chronically online people are often criticized for not understanding the real world, or what real life is like. These criticisms are sometimes ironic in themselves, as they show a lack of willingness on the part of the criticizer to try to understand the experiences of youth. Being Chronically Online is important for the study of adolescence because it is primarily a ‘condition’ faced by adolescents. It is important to understand why adolescents spend so much time online. Can they create a life online that they can not offline? Is it because they have more freedom to express themselves, their thoughts, opinions and feelings? Examining the reasons behind the potentially harmful levels of use described by the phrase can help to understand the struggles of modern day adolescents. Work Cited Definition: Cheesed. Urban Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheesed Dekin, S. (2021, May 26). Why teenages need to start discussing their emotions. Mission Harbor Behavioral Health. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://sbtreatment.com/blog/teenagers-discussing-emotions/
