Online Escapism

The internet is regularly used as a retreat away from the trials and annoyances of offline life, a realm of comparative pleasure and, sometimes, safety.  This can lead to statements contrasting the internet with reality, as if online activities exist independent of reality itself.  It may even seem like a trivial thing to correct, but random, casual statements like this can actually be connected to a major misunderstanding of what exactly makes something a part of reality.  When stupid comments are tolerated, stupidity is what is ultimately tolerated.

If the internet exists, it is by necessity a part of reality, as reality encompasses everything that is true and everything that exists.  Therefore, it cannot be true that the internet is somehow separate from reality, given that the internet can actually be accessed from a plethora of electronic devices.  It must either be something real or something that is at least really part of human perceptions of reality.  It can be used to temporarily find relief from personal problems, certainly, but the internet could not be accessible outside of what is real--at least a real part of human experiences.

Perceptions themselves, even when they are not connected with aspects of reality beyond the perceptions, are still a real part of conscious experience and therefore are real, after all!  It follows that even if one's sensory perceptions of the external world do not represent the true nature of the external world (an example would be if it turned out to be true that an object that is being looked at doesn't truly exist and is only a visual hallucination or mental construct), the internet is still a part of the world one can perceive, and it is thus not something wholly separate from reality.

Of course it is possible to forsake offline responsibilities and pursuits for the sake of online escapism, yet this is far from the internet being a portal through which users escape reality by going into another part of reality (any attempt to say that anything outside of reality exists is doomed for immediate philosophical failure).  There is no such thing as something that can be experienced that is beyond the scope of reality itself, even if the only part of reality involved is the reality of subjective sensory perceptions.  Ideas contrary to this would not be uttered or even privately held to if adherence to rationalism was widespread.

Escapism through the internet, which is merely one of many ways the internet can be useful, is only possible if the internet is at least part of the reality of our sensory perceptions.  In one sense, this might be and hopefully is obvious even to many non-rationalists, but common language suggests that certain people do actually believe that there is a distinction between the internet and the rest of reality.  Perhaps some people who use such phrases do not truly mean something so asinine, but imprecise language can be a direct indicator of a problematic belief.