Does making online friends help you overcome social anxiety?

Like if all your friends and relationships are online will it help a person be able to come out of their social anxiety. Not to meet them or talk on the phone but just to chat for hours at a time? Just wondering.

no. if you have social anxiety, anything social will result in the same way. i actually do have social anxiety and have spoken to people on the internet that i have never met. even if you can’t see someone, you are still interacting with the idea of a person, so the thoughts and hesitations that go through your head still persist as you converse, maybe just not at the same intensity as if you were face to face with a person. in some cases it’s actually worse, because if you are thinking that someone is thinking something, either positive or negative, there is no body language to support you, so if your anxiety is acting up, the uncertainty you feel in those instances makes it much worse.

i’ve also talked to people online and later met therm in person, and even though we talked non-stop online, in person there was still that awkwardness.

bottom line. if you want to overcome social anxiety, do it by being social, in real life. the anxiety exists only in your head so the setting your social interactions take place in don’t effect the anxiety. there is no ‘easy way’.

Support Forum & Chat Info