Virtual relationships can empty your soul.

I love the internet, mobile phones and technology that helps me stay in touch with people.

Living in a close community these technologies are almost redundant – you meet people all the time – at the shops, sports practice, the farm show and so on.  In fact some people hardly use them at all.  But if I want to stay in touch with my parents who are always travelling for the charity they work for, or my siblings who live abroad, or wider family and friends abroad that I see all too infrequently, or even colleagues, telephone, internet, etc are really great.  I can see them and they can see me – virtually.  This kind of engagement is really positive.

But when your only interaction with humanity is virtual you lose the richness of social dynamic.  You forget how to ride the waves of human emotion.  And if you’ve grown up with TV, video games, social networking etc but without the real pressures of making relationships work there is a good chance that your emotional development will be vacuous.  And that is what the research is showing.  So please get off the internet and go and try to make peace with someone in the flesh.  See your parents, brother, sister, friend and try to compromise.  It may not be as easy as clicking a few buttons on your computer or mobile phone, but it is real and it will help lift that depression.  Even if it makes you angry rather than happy, you won’t be despondent.

BBC: Young more lonely than the old, UK survey suggests