Hiding Behind the Screen

     In the movie Catfish, Yaniv Schulman meets an eight year-old artist, Abby, because she sends him a piece of her artwork. In doing so, he investigated to learn more about her. He ends up adding her family and friends on the social networking site, Facebook, and even talks to her mom, Angela, over the phone. Over Facebook, he realized Abby had a nineteen year-old sister, Meghan. He reaches out to Meghan, and they begin a relationship.
      Months later, when things become suspicious, Yaniv begins searching for online clues as to who Meghan really is, because she would never meet him face-to-face. He finally goes to visit her and realizes Meghan doesn't even exist. It was Abby's mom, Angela, who had created the "Meghan" profile on Facebook. Angela also told Yaniv that Abby was the artist, when that was also her. In a sense it was all Angela, hiding behind Abby and Meghan so she could pretend she was someone else.
       Angela did this, because her life hadn't turned out the way she wanted. She wanted to become an artist and a dancer, but two sons with mental handicaps and had gotten in the way of that. When she was pretending to be Abby and Meghan, she was whoever she wanted to be. When times get tough, or don't go as we planned them to, we get scared and nervous that things are going to be that way forever. In all reality, everything is temporary. Education is temporary, having a job could be temporary, being young is temporary; everything changes weather we see it or not. Not seeing things that way leads to coping skills, and everyone copes in their own way.
        Angela coped by creating this entire online world where she was exactly who she wanted be. Hiding behind a screen can only last for so long. When we turn to the computer to deal with our stress or depression, we aren't dealing with it at all actually. It makes things harder on us. We turn away from the real world, who is full of people who care about us, and it hinders one from meeting anyone new or running into a opportunity that won't arise online. All in all, the computer is a great place to learn or gather information, but is it really a place to put your life? I, for one, know I don't want to miss out on what to world has to offer me, simply because I was too busy creating fake profiles online and pretending I'm someone I'm not.