Does Internet contol your life?

Yes, the time has come for Independent media to develop in different directions. I mean look at the Web world and the variety of different blogs, social networks and chat-rooms represented there. For drivers, models, Asians or gays – everyone can find something interesting for him or her. Sometimes it becomes even ridiculous and such websites like www.stumbleupon.com (the site for “adults and children abducted by aliens from space”) or www.shavemyyeti.com, where the only option is literally to “shave your yeti” become popular. But even the most ridiculous websites still reach their audience because that is mainly the point of the Internet. Think about it, the Internet is a whole new world of information for everyone, stupid and smart, fun and boring, religious and protestant. Those websites find their audience because even though they seem cheesy or don’t even make sense at all there is always someone, who finds him or herself in it.
One of those websites that I would never even think about to capture my attention is www.fmylife.com. You probably already heard about it or maybe even submitted your own FML story. For a past few months I heard the name of this websites every day: in my class, dorms or dining hall. People make stories from FML their statuses on Facebook and get hundreds of comments. FML became more than just a website to share the crazy stories from your life. It actually became the whole new social network for college and high-school students. People rate stories and fight for their favorite ones as if that was the most important thing in their life. In this way or the other, but FML became a huge success in the Web world and people all over the countries visit this website on an everyday basis. The website already has its own online store, where readers can purchase different FMyLife products.
The most exciting and interesting aspect in this huge success of FMyLife is the reasons that make people visit it every day. The website became almost a psychologist for many depressed and busy people who visit it in order to compare their life to the life of the others and feel better about their own problems. Many students during those few last weeks of school are feeling really overwhelmed with all the projects and amount of homework. They study till late night or even morning and during the breaks I can always see students going to FMyLife just to read all those terrible stories and feel better. They want to know that someone’s life sucks even more than theirs. That’s what makes us all feel better. That’s the success of FML.
Social networks are becoming our life. Not in theory, but literally. I know so many couples who broke up because of the pictures on the Facebook as well as many friends who were publically embarrassed when someone put provocative videos of them drinking and doing crazy things on the YouTube. Now FMyLife become a real psychologist for many people around the world. What is next? Those social networks already control many parts of our personal lives. We just never notice it. Internet becomes as powerful as it never was before. And who knows what is going to happen tomorrow…