Wednesday, November 19, 2008
chapter 11 - post 1
I personally have not had friendship that was formed exclusively in cyber space, but I have had many friendship that have developed because if the internet. Recently a friend of mine from middle school found me on facebook. We hadn't been in contact for over 10 years, and in the mean time, our lives had completely changed. The internet really made it easy for us to get to know each other better. The best and worst thing about the internet is that people usually discard much more personal information. I learned so much more about my friend in a very short amount of time. While chatting online, I feel like people are able to create an alter ego. They have time to think about what they want to say before they say it, and are able to delete or change words around however they like. For me, it is very difficult to talk face to face about personal issues, but online, I don't have the fear of a reaction. I mean, if worst comes to worst I can always log out. For the first month that my friend and I were reunited, it was great. We were learning so much about each other and finally set up a time to meet in person. When we finally met up, it was very awkward. The conversation did not flow as easily as it did online, and the topics that we discussed were very general. Body language was also an issue. It was very awkward to make eye contact. It's funny, because I had learned so much about my friend during the previous month, but it was as if I was meeting a stranger for the first time. The tone of a persons voice gives different meanings to what they say, so while something may be a joke online to one person, it is a serious matter to the other. I personally have no formed a cyber relationship for this reason. In my opinion, you aren't able to fully know a person until you spend time this them in real life. You may be able to gather a great amount of information about who they are trying to be, but until you spend a large amount of time with them, and are able to form your own opinion of who they are, you don't know them very well.
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3 comments:
Steph-anie I really enjoyed reading your blog. Your story has such a good moral to it because I think has happened to a lot of us. It is true that I think people talk more freely and openly about deeper issues online then they do face to face because it isn't reality. Also, like you said you could totaly speak your mind freely and if you get uncomfortable or are done with the conversation you simply sign off.
I agree, that you can't know someone fully online you have to spend a lot of face to face time to truly know someone.
Very interesting Blog!
I too personally do not believe in the whole cyber relationship thing, the reason being is because how well do really get to know that person. For all you know, everything that they tell you about themselves could be a lie. How is someone really even develloping a relationship with someone in cyberspace if they have never even met that person, this is what I always wonder. You hear about people all the time meeting on line and then falling in love with someone they dont really truely know!!!! I just think that there are alot of weird people out their and through the computer its hard to determine that, for all you know the person you have a relationship with online could be a 60 year old man and not the hot 24 year old in the picture he showed you. I think for some people cyber relationships gives people a change to become whomever they want to be, without anyone finding out the truth. In order to fully know someone there must be some type of face to face interaction and not just mere chatting on the internet!!!
Hi Steph-annie! You mentioned that meeting your friend that you had been corresponding with online was awkward. Why do you think it was so awkward? What made it strange? Did you both keep in touch after that? If you had to do it over again, would you?
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