Friday, November 16, 2012
Chapter 11 Cyberspace vs F2F Friendships
I have made friends that exist exclusively in cyberspace. These friendships are different from face-to-face relationships because they see and read what I am doing more often than my face-to-face friends. Because of social networking and all those other websites that allows friends to view random aspects of my life, my cyberspace friends are more up-to-date on what I'm actually doing in my life. As for my face-to-face friends, they are more involved within my life, for example: hanging out, going to the gym, grabbing a bite etc. My cyberspace friends, are all people I have met in real life and went to school with, for I do not engage in friendships (unless it is an online school course) with others I do not know personally. I believe you never can really read into a person unless you have met them on multiple levels of communication (like texting, video streaming, face-to-face contact). The cyber relationships are realistic because I know and have met the person on the other side of the computer. I would not form relationships with new or random people because not only is it a trust issue, but also a safety precaution. I value myself and my personal information, along with my time.
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Agreed! It is very hard to have friends on cyberspace with all of the craziness going on in this world. I know plenty of people who actually have had relationships with people they met offline which I think is completely insane! I could never muster up enough confidence to meet anyone online without feeling unsafe. In my blog I actually said I have had some cyberspace friendships with people I have never met after my oldest sister was telling me about the chat line when I was in high school. The thing that drove me a little crazy is because I never knew if the person on the other side of the computer is who they said and for that reason it never left anything but a hi and small conversation. So I don’t even know if that would be considered a real “friendship” lol
ReplyDeleteI see cyber friendships same way. I also think in order to develop new friendships we should be more open and disclose personal information about our lives. I cannot imagine telling someone I have not met face to face about my personal life. Like you said there are safety and trust precautions. I like to keep up with my friends on cyberspace, but the difference is I know them face to face. However, I was discussing this subject with one of my friends. She made a very good point by stating that sometimes you can meet new people online, and then once you met a friendship can develop. So in some aspect, cyberspace is another tool for developing new friends.
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