Is Online Interaction Helpful to Those with Social Anxiety?

Hey Everyone!

Something I've been thinking about for a long time is how many people today seem to struggle with what's been defined as social anxiety. I assume that different people experience it to different degrees, in different situations and in different ways, but I've often wondered if the digital age helps ease people into real-life social encounters, because they can "practice" online.

A quick Google search defines social anxiety disorder as "a mental health condition that causes fear and avoidance of social situations due to the fear of being judged or embarrassed."

Now, I'm pretty sure we ALL have felt this at times, but I was wondering how people feel about social interactions online vs. social interactions in person if they are especially sensitive to these issues.

* Do you consider yourself someone who struggles with social anxiety? What are your specific symptoms? Do you have them both in person and online?

* Does online communication help you feel more empowered to deal with social anxiety in person? Do you have fewer/lesser symptoms when talking online vs. talking in real life? Does "practicing" interactions online make you feel more confident to have them in person?

* What are the pros/cons of online vs. in person interactions and how does it affect your social anxiety? For example, it may seem easier to talk online, but if the conversation is just text, we don't get voice or facial cues to help us interpret a person's meaning (being sarcastic instead of serious, etc.) Do you find it more challenging to talk to someone when you can't see/read these cues?

* What advice do you have for online communities trying to help those struggling with social anxiety?


Over the years, some of the friends I've made online made me realize what a difference online communication can make to them. For some, a simple emoji reaction might mean they feel heard, which is something they've been missing in real life.

For this reason, I try to only write threads when I know I'll have some time to interact with those posting and at the very least, try to leave an emoji as acknowledgement that their post has been read. I'm not always able to do this, and if I can't find a given emoji that meets what I want to say, I tend to default to the "I(nformational)" reaction, because it lets someone know their voice has been "heard."

I know it's such a simple thing, but I never realized how it can also help people who have never been taught to believe their input matters.

What other ideas do you have for helping those who are fearful of saying anything due to being ignored, ridiculed, or rejected in real life?

I practice lots of jokes online before I play them in person, at my job. =^.^=

I wonder if being online helps a lot with blowing off steam that could get you burned in person...

I see a lot of people saying a lot of things online that would get them clobbered if they said it to someone's face. But there are no stakes online, where you can just log off and avoid consequences.

Is that helpful or harmful? Is it good that people can vent, or does it interfere with developing social skills because they don't need to develop them anymore?

Add-on note: This may or may not put a strain on some friendships in a certain skype chat...

Gee... I wonder who you practice them on.

*Seoulsearch wonders if she has a target painted on her forehead.*

To be fair, I'm not the only victim, er, audience.

At least I'm able to give a wide range of emojis -- some of them possibly hissing -- when giving my reactions.

Yeah, I have to admit that I've used this technique. Sometimes, just because one is right, doesn't mean everyone else will acknowledge one is right. I've made the mistake before of saying certain things in real life without having tested them first through the filter of online communication, and people have looked at me real strangely, and/or made comments as if I were some sort of social pariah or enemy. I guess my views were too advanced for them to comprehend.

Being able to test such comments online first provides a sort of gauge of what society's response might be. This is helpful for people who don't use or look to the lamestream media and/or government to determine what their values are.

I wouldn't say I have social anxiety but boy do I hate social situations with strangers and for that reason I avoid them. But if social anxiety has increased markedly in the past few decades, then one hypothesis would be that online interaction fuels rather than helps it. What is more certain is that the explosion of social media has us all comparing our actual lives to the highlights people share about their own lives and feeling like our lives are lesser because of it.

Overall I think online interactions help us introverts especially feel more connected and less disconnected from other people, but as some of us (well I suppose many of us at this point in time) have had the chance to prove being together in person is better than being together online. Since one of the nice things with online interactions is that you can take time to think about what you want to say and edit your comments much more thoroughly, I don't find that online interactions help so much with real life interactions. The biggest help they can be is if I've gotten to know someone online then when we have to do the real time real life interaction we already have some topics to draw upon. Bottom line - online interaction seems second best but better than nothing.

I'm thinking an online community seeking to help people overcome social anxiety to the point it's really negatively impacting their lives might want to try to create weekly challenges to encourage people to do things that are scary but not impossible. Whether that is buying something in a way that requires human interaction rather than ordering online, going out to eat alone, or finding a way to be in an environment where other people are without feeling any pressure to interact I don't know. Mostly because I don't like being in those kind of places to begin with. And the other thing that would be helpful would be to set the goal at making life go easier and more smoothly for the affected individuals rather than any sort of goal to make them enjoy social situations and want to be the life of the party. They don't have to become very social people; they just have to be able to navigate the necessities of life.

seoul must be asleep at the switch. I got to the "useful" before she did.

This is really interesting.

I'm finding the comments about testing things in writing/online to be quite intriguing. Since I've used written communication to express myself all my life (paper letters before the internet,) I guess I kind of divide how I classify my communications (even though online people who meet me say I'm the same in person, just that I don't "talk" nearly as much in real life.)

It's kind of like how my parents told us as kids that "at home talk" -- private family matters -- were different from "away from home" talk -- general topics. I tend to separate my "online talk" (topic and style) from "in person talk" (shorter and less often,) but mostly because I could never have most of the conversations I do online in real life.

However, many of my thread ideas come from interactions in real life or things I've read, so I tend to just throw everything out there without even thinking of "testing it out" first.

And this is exactly what I like so much about internet discussions. Like anything else, the internet is a tool, and I learn a lot when hearing about how people are able to make it serve a useful purpose in their unique own way.

Thank you so much for sharing!

Must be those cat-like reflexes.

I'm about as rude in person as I am online. And it's easier to show it on my face than it is in an emoji. Haaa! I also laugh out loud at my own jokes just like that. However, I do this talent for disarming if I notice they are appearing to be guarded. Is it any easier to dismiss someone in person than it is online? I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about that, because you still have to consciously work it out in your own conscience, like a cat might after being thrown into a pool of water.

As I think of my go to tactic in disarmament, offering cookies, reveals the relationship between food and fellowship, which is what we've all come online in want of.

And, if I were a food item, I would be a...

I don't think I have social anxiety. I am just very selective about who I socialize with. And I might be the oddball online, but I think I'm pretty much the same online as I am offline. I used to work with a lot of people and a lot of customers and I did that for years before I had the internet. I had zero social anxiety all the while I was around people, from the beginning. One lady I worked with considered me a social butterfly. Well, that was perhaps true at work, but not outside of work. Outside of work I am more quiet whether that be online or offline...unless I like spending time with you, then I can be quite talkative.

While I like the online world, I don't really socialize that much online (of course, I don't socialize any more offline than online). I mean, look how long it took me to find this site lol. I mostly use online for reading news articles, watching stuff, paying bills, etc.
I do think the internet is a blessing, you can connect with people all over the world at any time of the day/night if you so desire.

Now, when it comes to family dinners and other family shindigs or parties (mostly speaking of rowdy parties) or other similar events, this is when I more likely to have social anxiety...especially if it's my own family And in those instances I really feel like this image below...

Offering cookies covers a multitude of social faux pas! 🍪

As both an introvert and someone with social anxiety, being online helps me get some connection with the outside world.
It also does allow me to be more outgoing and speak more freely. But only to a point.
As far as effects offline I don't know that I see any in terms of social settings. Like most things it's actually had more benefit for me internally than externally.

Most jobs I've ever had have been working with the public, which is why I've hated every job I've ever had. Even years and years of this didn't really resolve anything.

I suspect the ability to have a positive effect on someone depends on the reasons why they feel how they do to begin with. I view mine as part of my depression and as long as that exists, so will the other, making any chance of improvement quite small.
But others may have an external basis for theirs and I believe being online can potentially be more of a benefit to them. Of course that depends on what sort of online community they're in. Some places could potentially be more damaging.

It was questioned if that's really helpful if they aren't putting it to practice. I believe that IS putting it into practice. You first learn How to speak up, speak out, join in or whatever the case may be. You get learn what it feels like in a safer place. Once you know how to do something, then you can take it into the real world.
This concept exists everywhere. Go to a job and most jobs train you before putting you to work. Why should it be any different for interpersonal issues?
Some people lack certain skills and need training.
Sometimes in counseling this is what they do. Practice unfamiliar behaviors to learn how to go about them, so you can then use it in your daily life.

my advice when conversing with people with social anxiety is to tell them that the Christian definition of anxiety is: "misplaced priorities in life". talk like you've known the person forever, like he's your sister, brother, family member that your really close to, never mention yourself, have it be all about the person, LISTEN CARING WITH THE HEART OF JESUS & RESPOND WITH ALL TLC, tell them you are going to pray for them & start a prayer list for such people.

I've always been shy/quiet around other people. When social media started getting popular in the late 90s it really helped my social anxiety, but since then social media has become a very negative place where you can't say anything without being called out (criticized) for it and it would most likely just make a person's social anxiety worse.

yes, I'm on of those with mild social anxiety and online is often much easier than in person.

I am someone who was divinely healed of social anxiety. Therefore, I would say step one is asking God for healing because we often get in a habit of just accepting the status quo and forgetting that there is a God there that loves us and can intervene when the time is right.

Also, there might yet be a place for medicine. Before God healed me I had discovered that Prozac worked pretty well for me. It does however take a month to work, can interfere with libido, and the reason God wanted to heal me instead is because it interferes with our ability to hear the spirit - the good and the bad. This makes me wonder how much of my anxiety was coming from hearing Satan whispering silently to my soul, the significance in-part being that Satan can be rebuked. Also, it is much easier to start on a psych med than to get off. In fact the way I knew my healing was real and not bunk was that I had always had severe rebound anxiety when I missed a dose of my medication and I didn't have this at all when I was pronounced healed.

Third, as for your suggestion of using social media, that might be helpful to somebody with an extreme case, but for me it probably would have become a substitute for ever moving forward. I can't tell you definitively because though the internet was a thing before I was healed, social media was not as much. To more fully answering your question about this, no, I was not afraid to speak online nearly as much as in person.

Also, side notes on the origin of such things. First, I couldn't help but notice that multiples of my ailments back then were related to serotonin, and serotonin needs magnesium to be produced. Also, the bacteria in some soil has antidepressant-like properties. The point of these being that it is important to have healthy nutrition and life interactions to support yourself when you have such mental health issues (or for anyone really).

Finally, I have a prophetic friend for whom God once told him that the appendix has a purpose in helping us deal with especially high anxiety situations. This intrigued me because I had the most trouble with things like job interviews or school clinicals, and my appendix was removed when I was 7-years old. I recently thought to look into this more online, and found that there was indeed one study that found a higher incidence of mental health problems in adults who had had their appendix removed as children. Also, it has become a lot more known that the digestive system has a lot to do with functions we previously considered rooted in the neurological system. The gut has even been called "the second brain." Therefore, if people try to suggest that you have a lack of faith or that it is all in your head, remember both that there are clear biological components, and they aren't even confined to what's in our cranium.

Huh? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but this sounds like a definition from someone who hasn't experienced anxiety, so doesn't understand the exaggerated emotional response to one's thoughts. Yes, faith and keeping one's priorities in life straight help, but clinical anxiety isn't primarily a result of unhealthy thinking, but rather the result of the system itself that mediates these things being calibrated wrong.

When I was an undiagnosed anxiety sufferer in high school, I was determined not to let my 'shyness' get the best of me. Therefore instead of running from my ailment, I signed up for speech and debate class. Now I could force myself to go up front and speak, but I couldn't make my body stop shaking like a jackhammer - it was utterly beyond my control. This isn't a perfect example of what I'm talking about, but perhaps it will help demonstrate how disconnected the results can be from the thoughts and intentions of someone with a condition like anxiety or depression.