It's fascinating how someone can feel like they've been "raised by the internet," almost as if it’s a parent in this digital age. I'm curious to learn more about how that experience shapes a person!
I would like to say that my experience is largely positive, but it's hard to say that without the internet, I would actually be more capable. There are many things that the internet does well, but building young adults able to deftly navigate the real world is not one of them.
That said, the internet once again is now a source of information on how to be a responsible adults. However, there's no doubt that the internet is also a source of toxic information without good judgement and ruthless filtering.
Makes me think of intellectualization...
> In psychology, intellectualization (intellectualisation) is a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress – where thinking is used to avoid feeling.
> Like rationalisation, intellectualization can thus provide a bridge between immature and mature mechanisms both in the process of growing up and in adult life.[14]
> Donald Winnicott, however, considered that erratic childhood care could lead to over-dependence on intellectuality as a substitute for mothering;[15] and saw over-preoccupation with knowledge as an emotional impoverishment aimed at self-mothering via the mind.[16]
It's certainly a form of dissociation, but I think in the case of the author, and others with a similar sentiment here, it's more conscious and intentional, than unconscious.
Surely a conscious choice to escape into intellectualism/information at a young age could lead to training of your thought processes/patterns such that it does become an unconscious act. Regardless of choice, I think it's an interesting parallel to draw, still...