Liosuelo

When Connection Became Consumption: How the Internet Turned Into an Addiction

There was a period when my closest cousins moved to Florida from New Rochelle and Mount Vernon. I missed them deeply, and we didn’t speak as often. As preteens, there wasn’t really a way to maintain that connection. But there was one thing that felt accessible at the time… blogging.

My cousin had a blog. It was black and purple, and she would post music links. It gave me a window into parts of her personality that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise because of the distance. At first, I just observed. I watched how people shared themselves online without participating. Eventually, I created a few blogs of my own, but I always abandoned them.

Then came social media, starting with MySpace. I met people, tried to redesign my page, learned bits of code. There was also Sconex, which helped me stay connected to my friends from Brooklyn when I left for boarding school in Pennsylvania. It was a predominantly white environment, very different from what I was used to. I had grown up surrounded by Black and Latino communities, so suddenly being one of the only ones felt disorienting. Being able to see what my friends were doing back home mattered more than I realized at the time.

Alongside MySpace, there was Photobucket. People didn’t really use MySpace for albums, so they uploaded their photos there. That’s how I started finding other kids, people who were going to Westtown. I don’t even remember how exactly, but I remember scrolling through their photos, trying to piece together who they were.

It didn’t feel harmful at the time, but looking back, I can see the beginnings of a pattern. Watching people. Judging them. Consuming their lives without knowing them.

There was one girl who was especially popular who was coming to Westtown. Blonde, always at the beach, always surrounded by guys. It felt like a big deal that she was transferring as a sophomore. There was this strange anticipation around her. Who is she? What is she going to be like?

Even then, I was learning how to watch people before I learned how to be seen.

Alongside blogging, I also had a Xanga with one of my best friends in high school, Melissa. We shared it. She was from Pennsylvania, I was from New York. When I was home, I would post. When she was home, she would post. Sometimes we would write together.

I have a clear memory of sitting on her bed, laptop open, both of us laughing as we updated the blog. We had a shared password. We wrote funny posts about our male friends, Mason, Mark, Levi, just joking around. I think it might have even been anonymous.

Then there was LiveJournal. I remember finding a girl named Chloe. She was a senior, and I was a freshman. She had this quiet, ethereal presence. Her writing was raw and intimate. She wrote openly about her sexuality, her experiences, her questions about herself.

At the time, I was deeply religious, sexually repressed, and more close-minded than I understood. But I was curious. Reading her blog felt like looking into a life I wasn’t allowed to live. Sometimes it reinforced my beliefs, and sometimes it challenged them.

That was high school. The early stages of blogging and social media.

In college, I had a Blogspot. That was my most honest attempt at writing. I used it to process losing my virginity, who I was becoming, and the internal conflict I felt. Around that same time, I created another Blogspot called Nagela I Missed You. I remember the headline: “I know what it’s like to live alone inside your head.”

That was the first time I created something that felt like it belonged to me. But even then, I didn’t really share it. I told myself the right people would find it, but I didn’t tell anyone. I think I posted the link once on Facebook as a dare, but that was it.

I wanted to be read, but I was afraid of being seen.

Still, I had so much to say. As I tried to build my identity and understand myself beyond books, I turned to the internet. I followed blogs like Fly Girl, Running Mommy, and Oh Dear Drea. Each of them reflected parts of myself I wasn’t fully living. I experienced things through them.

Oh Dear Drea focused on vegan nutrition. Running Mommy was about running, family, and life abroad. Fly Girl was this creative Black woman from Brazil living in DC, doing graphic art. She felt so expansive to me.

My life didn’t look like theirs. I felt stuck between worlds, always in environments I didn’t fully belong to. Tied to academia, but craving freedom. Sexual, emotional, spiritual freedom, but living the opposite. That’s when escapism deepened. I remember when things started to shift, when I wasn’t reading to learn anymore. I was reading to avoid. To distract myself. To not sit with what I was feeling.

I can see that clearly now.

Around my senior year of high school in 2008, I discovered celebrity gossip blogs. My mom and I used to read magazines or watch E! together when I was younger, but having unlimited access online felt different. It was like living above a candy store.

I started reading those sites every day, for hours. I even introduced my friend Josh to them, and we would go to the library and read articles together, laughing. That was when entertainment blogs really took hold for me. Perez Hilton, Socialite Life, Skinny vs. Curvy, YBF, Madame Noire, Media Takeout, and others I can’t even remember now. I would spend hours moving between them.

Senior year at Westtown was especially difficult. I wanted to feel free. I wanted to express myself, to like boys, to explore that part of my identity. But being in a predominantly white environment, I didn’t have those opportunities. I felt disconnected, from myself and from others. I missed my family. I wasn’t excited about the college I was going to. I didn’t get into Barnard. I needed something to cope.

That’s when I started replacing not just books, but my feelings. Doubt, sadness, depression. By that point, I was struggling deeply. I slept constantly. I had anxiety. My weight fluctuated. I felt lost and alone in it.

I didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I read. For hours. Whenever I wasn’t in class or with friends, I was online. We had shared computers, library access, and I had my own laptop with Wi-Fi. This was before phones became what they are now, so I would go online whenever I could.

By the time I got to college, it had become a routine I depended on. I had to check those sites every day. Before bed, when I woke up, throughout the day. I was still functioning. I had a life, but it wasn’t full. I wasn’t thriving. I could be social, but I always returned to the internet.

During my sophomore year, when things were at their lowest and I eventually withdrew, I remember that time clearly. I wasn’t eating. I was sleeping constantly. I stayed in my room most of the day.

And I was online the entire time.

That’s when things shifted again. I started searching for information beyond entertainment. Wikipedia, articles, random sources. Anything I could find. I became obsessed with learning. I discovered so much, fragments of history, obscure facts, things I had never been exposed to before.

I would keep dozens of tabs open, organizing what I read, saving it for later. I told myself there would be a purpose for all of it one day. That I would make sense of it.

But I never did.

It just accumulated. In my mind. In my body.

I talk more in part three about how all of this eventually caught up to me, especially through my health, and how it pushed me to finally step away from the internet.