Online gaming, international friendships and digital relationships are reshaping how young people experience community, intimacy and cultural differences. While parents may see isolation, their children might be participating in an entirely new form of global socialisation. But what do they gain, and what might they lose along the way?
Meeting someone online can hardly be considered unusual these days. Almost every age group has some presence in the digital world, and while a love story once needed a workplace, a circle of friends, a night out, a chance encounter or at least a shared geographical location, today it can sometimes begin with a single message.
Meeting someone online can hardly be considered unusual these days. Almost every age group has some presence in the digital world, and while a love story once needed a workplace, a circle of friends, a night out, a chance encounter or at least a shared geographical location, today it can sometimes begin with a single message.
There is a period in parents’ lives that we talk about surprisingly little. For years, even decades, someone needs us. We get up in the morning, organise, worry, cook, do the laundry, ask questions, wait, drive them around and offer advice, even when it has not been requested. Meanwhile, almost without noticing, caring for others becomes one of the central organising principles of our lives.
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