Safety In Digital Relationships

The digital age has interacted and affected every aspect of our lives sparing none. Not even relationships and friendships. We have all made friends over the internet and even worked or studied through it.

It's now the new normal and there's no need to try to curtail it rather we try to learn to maximise it and make it as useful as possible.

Relationships formed over the internet is almost like every other one because humans are similar regardless of where they meet.

There's no ideal meeting point for friendship or relationship. People meet in school, at work, in planes, restaurants, etc. it doesn't really matter. So digital relationships just add to the options.

Like every other channel of meeting people, we must exercise caution but even more in digital friendships especially when physical meetings are being scheduled or financial involvements are being made to avoid falling into the wrong hands.
Evil people are everywhere and have learnt to use the internet to disguise and deceive gullible people.

It is very easy to claim a fake identity on the internet for various reasons so it's always better to prioritise safety if an internet friendship begins to advance past just chatting.

In as much as we exercise carefulness, we should also seek for second opinion from friends and relatives inorder to judge our conversations.
One way of doing this is by showing close friends those chats which make you uncomfortable or unsure of the reply to give or the motive of the sender.
This would enable you to avoid falling into the hands of scammers, serial killers, blackmailers, etc.

This is because the internet is filled with real people who bring their normal life to the internet.
The evil we see in the digital space is brought by evil ones who come online to diversify their evil. Hence we must always be on the lookout to avoid falling prey.

So in summary, make friends online, work online but apply extra caution while at it.
Treat your online buddies with respect, interact positively and as is necessary, no more. Reduce the volume of personal data shared over the internet especially nudes, passwords, addresses, etc.
Assume that people are guilty until they prove innocent, that way you would hardly call prey.

Privacy should be your watchword in life generally and even more so for digital friendships.

It is also very important to establish boundaries when interacting with strangers especially digitally.
Take control of the communications, say "NO" if a request is not appealing to you and don't try to please an online character who may not even be who he/she claims to be.

Try to verify the claims people make in chats, a little Google search could do you great service. Google their name, Google that office they claim to occupy and the place they claim to live.

One can never be too careful but as far as safety is concerned, we need to play our part and not be found wanting.