In today’s digital age, we can do a lot of things, we can make online friends, shop online, work remotely, and much more. The possibilities are endless, all thanks to digitalisation.
In today’s time, we can make friends from any part of the world. A lot of people make online friends either through social media or gaming. With the help of technology, we get to know people who we would not have known otherwise.
In my early teen years, I made online friends from Lebanon, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Dubai, Kuwait, and many states of India. Some of them were people whom I was grateful for as they had an amazing impact on my life.
Are Online Friendships Safe?
The biggest safety concern while making friends online is a threat to privacy. Talking from my personal experience, I have always ensured certain factors before sharing personal information with my online friends. I recommend you follow these safety measures if you are looking to make virtual friends.
1. Verify Their Social Media
The first step is to ensure how long they have been active on social media, and do not have a new or a fake account. Additionally, you can check their friends or followers to ensure they are not following any bots or fake accounts. Look through the profiles of their friends and followers and verify if they seem genuine.
2. Do Not Share Your Personal Information Right Away
We tend to share a lot of things with our friends. While it is acceptable to share information with offline friends, we should be careful about the information we share with our online friends to ensure our safety.
Take your time to get to know the friends you make online. One of the things about online friendships is that we can instantly connect with someone over mutual interests and tend to develop a bond with them quickly. Therefore, you must be sure you know them well before you share any piece of information with them.
3. Check Their Story
Friends share everything, they tell each other about their crushes, or what’s going on in their daily lives. You can use this to verify the information they provide you. For example – If they tell you about their crush, ask for their crush’s social handle or maybe a picture of them together.
4. Video Call Them
The one way to make 100% sure you are not catfished is by talking to them, specifically on video calls. If they keep making excuses for not video calling then they are probably fishy.
It is important to remember that not everyone will be comfortable with video calling which is okay as there are other ways to verify how genuine they are.
5. Trust Your Instincts
A wonderful gift we are blessed to have is our instincts. Instincts have a way of sending us a hint when something is not right, or when you are in danger. When something is not right we may have a weird feeling about it, listen to your intuition and make your decisions wisely.
Also read: Making online friends the safe way
The Beauty Of Online Friendships
The best part about making online friends is a lack of judgement and ease. In our everyday life, we meet people either from school or our neighborhood who may have prejudices about us, this makes it challenging to get to know them. However, with online friendships, that is hardly the case.
When you talk to people online, you do not fear judgement or prejudices. People who have online friends find it easier to open up to them compared to their offline friends. This is also applicable to introverts who find it difficult to talk to people in real life. Moreover, people with social anxiety who struggle with communicating with people find it easier to communicate with people over texts, thus making online friendships a suitable option for them.
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Conclusion
Thanks to the digital world, we can make friends from all over the world. However, one must consider the safety factor while making friends online. For this, you need to ensure you verify their social media, listen to what they say, talk to them on a video call, trust your instincts, and most importantly avoid sharing personal information right away. Making online friends is easier for some people compared to making offline friendships because of the lack of judgement and prejudice. On the other hand, some introverts find it difficult to interact with people.