I don't think that online relationships can ever be the same. I know this a quite a pessimistic view and a statement which is made without any ‘proof’, but it is just how I feel.
In online relations there are ways of expressing emotion (through the ‘smiley faces’ etc) and you can sometimes sense how someone is feeling, however even though the emotion can be expressed, is it real? Relationships can be formed, and have done, but I don’t know if they can ever be the same as offline because if they were it would have to involve both the online users being completely truthful and ‘themselves’, which I doubt all are. The online realms have so much opportunity to easily not be completely yourself, perhaps over exaggerate, lie (all of which is harder face to face) that I wonder if anyone will ever be able to resist the temptation.
I just find it hard to see how a friend/partner online can have relationships without ever having seen, spoken and shared real emotion with. Relationships sharing offline and online communications may be different, but only ever experiencing online relations with somebody I do not think can be ‘real’ or compared to the offline ones.
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i think if you have met the person once or twice and you want to have a relationship with that person and you dont feel quite confident to pick up a phone and talk with them, then yes i think the internet is great for that. but you can never truly feel the emotions of a 'real' hug over the internet. i know you can send those hug 'emotions' of msn however it is not quite the same.
ReplyDeleteThere's a bit in this week's reading (Lister p. 173) that may make you change your mind about being able to experience real emotion online.
ReplyDeleteI'm wary of these certainties here. Perhaps you could do some research into this - places like online support groups and interest-based communities can tell us much about relationships and emotions in cyberspace.