A question on Internet Friendships

Good Morning, everyone.

I’m writing this to appease a bit of curiosity, and to ask an interesting question: What do you all think of Internet Friendships? The Insightful Bunch and I had an interesting discussion on some of this a few days back, but I was curious as to what the community as a whole thought. As a psychology student, I find human behavior and motivation rather interesting—obviously, or I wouldn’t be a psych major. However, as someone who has had and developed several friendships online, I have to ask: what do people think of this?

Do you view people on the internet as just blips on a screen—or do you actually think of them as people? Do you ever want to be friends with anyone you have met online via a site like this or others? Do you feel comfortable speaking about normal every-day things like you would with a friend in the physical world (e.g. what is going on with you, stuff about your life)? If so, do you feel you have to know someone for X amount of time, or is it a comfortability thing?

These are general questions, to be sure… but I think it would be interesting to get a gauge on people and how they view things. I know people who play it very close to the chest with anything personal, but like talking about movies and games (and obviously comics), and I know people who seem to not care too much about being mysterious or cautious, and will talk freely about things.

In my personal experience, I have made friends online that have lasted over a decade. These people I speak with online, have spoken with on the phone, and even in cases in the Chicago area where I live, have met up for concerts and events (friends met off of a band’s forums, for example). I still talk and hang with these people when I can—and I still talk and keep in touch with those out of state. But, from what I’ve seen so far, this is about a 50/50 split. Some people trust no one online and keep everyone at an arms distance, others are more casual and open up over time.

That being said: humor me if you well, how do you feel about his? How do you view your ‘internet friendships’ or acquaintances?

I honestly think of people on the internet as just that...people. I've actually encountered a few people online who I would consider a genuine friend and would have no problem meeting them in real life. For instance I have a buddy on tumblr and we talk everyday, we consider each other tumblr besties just because we have so much in common, and he absolutely loved my blog. I'm not that much of a cautious person online, though I do keep some things private as someone on the internet doesn't necessarily need to know that much of my personal life. However I'm open to sharing as much about myself to others as I see fit.

@DarkxSeraph: Hmmmm, that's a tricky one. Like I'd have to actually have known this person quite a while. We'd have to have skyped, talked on the phone etc. for me to consider revealing more about myself to them (not that I have dark secrets or anything).

The phone call step is usually a big one, in my opinion. That, for me, is a level of comfort that needs to be built toward. But I see where you are coming from on that one.

Thanks for the heads up about this! As I was in on the initial conversation, I'll hold off on saying too much right now, let others reply (but maybe I'll give a direct response later on). Meanwhile, I remembered having written a paper my sophomore year dealing with one specific friendship I'd developed over the Internet. This is an academic paper (in tone and length), mind you, but I think you in particular would find it interesting (and hopefully others would too ^_^).

The Insightful Bunch needs to represent, of course. As for the paper--reading over it now!

I've had a set of internet friends going for almost five years now. We're all very close.

So internet friendships are a-okay. Anyone who says otherwise is basically an idiot.

@IV

But do you feel people who have concerns about trusting someone online, or revealing anything about themselves have a valid point?

Just curious.

Bump because good topic.

Also because, update on conversation which led into this, the girl pretending to be another girl was in fact a guy pretending to be a girl pretending to be another girl. I'm officially taking the blue pill.

Ironically, the people i trust the most i only know through online means :) @akbogert: .... Wow... That other friend of yours must be devastated...

I'm good with internet friends.

Some can be flighty, I mean I'm here you can start the convo hehe

But some are forebers !

For the most part, I trust the people I meet on here to be who they say they are. Most of the time we have no reason to lie and I talk to a fair few people on here who if I ever met in real life, I'd have no problem calling friends. The community on here is what keeps me on this site.

@DarkxSeraph: Yeah, I imagine he is/would be. Like I said, I'm just checking out altogether at this point. There was about a week-long window during which I and others made it clear we were seeking honesty, and the willingness to continue the girl aspect of the charade even past that just strikes me as way too...unrepentant.

@Lvenger said:

For the most part, I trust the people I meet on here to be who they say they are. Most of the time we have no reason to lie and I talk to a fair few people on here who if I ever met in real life, I'd have no problem calling friends. The community on here is what keeps me on this site.

Aye.

@InnerVenom123 and I are great Internet friends.

We never have disagreements.

Ever.

I don't think I could consider a person to be an actual friend until I met them and got to know them in real life, and I'd probably have to be quite well acquainted with them to consider meeting them in real life. If they were a friend of a friend and not a total stranger, I'd be more likely to meet them, at a party or night out or whatever.

I tend to keep personal details to myself online. I joined here to talk about comic books, so I tend to focus on that. Sometimes real life topics come up and I respond, but I keep it simple and don't go on and on about my life story.

So basically, the people on the screen to me are people, but not necessarily 'friends'. I'd maybe refer to them as 'people I know' if we were close, in an internet sort of way.

@KZR and I chat over email.

Were friends I suppose.

We talk about our lives and each other.

Mostly humorously but...

Anyway she's my friend.

Even if I do think of her as a blip on the internet scream :3

Depends....

Most of my friends on this site are actually friends I know in real life. One of them introduced me to this site, and I introduced at least 3 of them on this site. As for total strangers off the internet of this site, no. Unless you share the same interest, that's all you have, but it doesn't really count as "friendship".... But rather, aqaintences of similar interest. In other words, friendship to me is someone who knows you and accepts you for flaws you have, and is there to knock sense in you when things go crazy and vice versa.

I can understand that some people are somewhat internet bound and can not really go out (whether by choice or by handicap) and get what most people would consider real friends. If this is the case, then that is also the determination of how that person opens up to the other and vice versa. Then again remember this; The internet is a place of many faces.

In the old days, people used to make long distant friends through what you would call a "Pen Pal".... Pen Pals wasn't always 100% and the same can be said about the internet. But look at this... At least with a Pen Pal, they choose the effort to send charished (not digital copies) of their photos and actually write with their own hands and writing to express themselves to the other pen pal.....

The feeling is not the same using the internet; not unless, however, the two "internet buddies" decide on going through that effort.

@DarkxSeraph

I am slow to trust new people with personal info, (As Akbogert can tell you). People are just names, till I get to know them. Having said that, I have met a handful of people I consider friends. One person is, in fact, my best friend. We speak on, and off CV. And there are a few people I talk to about RL stuff. So yeah, I have no problem trusting people, if given time to get to know them.

I think if you put the effort in to get to know someone, if you are there for them and they are there for you, if you are both as open and as honest as each other...then yes, it can be just as real as any other type of friendship. Of course it can. I try to keep my guard up when it comes to these things, but every now and then you just hit it off with someone. I may not have been in the same room as these people, but I would find it insulting to say that we haven't met, as a meeting of the minds can be just as powerful and just as legitimate as an encounter in real life. There are only a handful, maybe, but the friends I have online mean just as much to me as any other friends I have - if they are sad then I am a bit sad too, if they are in trouble or they have problems then I worry, and when things are going well I am thrilled for them, as I would be for anyone else. And that works both ways, which is why I consider them to be real friends. It's a two way thing, this friendship business :D

It's not for everyone, but it works for me ^_^

One thing I didn't really bring up in any conversation thus far (at least, I don't think I did) is my conviction that this very question is an artifact of the time we're living in.

The Internet is already an intrinsic part of our lives. Most people I will ever meet have an Internet connection available to them all, or at least most, of the time. Socialization, memory-making, news dissemination, photo storage, conversations, not to mention a tremendous amount of business infrastructure and almost all non-bill/magazine mail (and a lot of that too) are already on the Internet. Our media -- music, movies, books, comics, etc. -- are also digitalizing. The point is that it won't be long before the majority of the things that make up our "real" lives are on the Internet. I don't consider a letter that someone takes the time to send me via email a "fake" or lesser letter, though I appreciate the intimacy of a physical handwritten note. I don't consider music I hear on my iPod less real because I'm not hearing the band live. And I don't consider the emotions, both positive and negative, which I am made to feel when communicating with people over the Internet are in any way fake. The belief that other people on the Internet are anything less than complete, real, human beings, who are equally emotionally invested in what they say and do, is an outrageous fantasy.

Sure, people behave as if others on the Internet somehow "don't count." But then treating people as subhuman and/or just there for your temporary amusement hardly requires an ethernet cable; people do that to one another all the time. In the same way, though it'd be (mostly) impossible to trick a person in real life about your age, gender, or appearance, there are still a myriad of ways in which we can be completely fake towards others we see with our own eyes and talk to with our own voices every day. If anything, the absence of fear of immediate consequence allows people on the Internet to be more honest because they can always just block the other person if it turns sour.

I guess my point is, I think the distinction between things/people/events and things/people/events "on the Internet" is inherently a fabrication and will inevitably disappear from our language. People don't say "I went shopping...on the Internet" or "I bought an album...on the Internet." They don't say "I just got a paycheck...on the Internet," even though they didn't get a real check, just a direct deposit into their bank account. They don't differentiate between the validity of mail or news received in a physical paper or letter and the news and correspondence they receive in their email. Why all these other things are considered real things which just happen to be on the Internet, but our social lives are granted a level of superficiality, I don't know. The impact other people have on us, via their words and their images and all the ways they reach through the web and touch our lives, is just as real. Our digital music appears as real-world sound. Our digital paychecks appear as real-world currency. And our digital friendships appear as real-world emotion, thought, and memory.

So while I understand people who don't feel comfortable developing deep or meaningful relationships with people they cannot see, hear, and touch, I don't understand the idea that those "online relationships" are anything less than just "relationships." You're interacting with other people, and aside from the few blatant con artists (who, again, exist in real life too), that counts as much as interacting with other people ever does.

@Illuminatus said:

@InnerVenom123 and I are great Internet friends.

We never have disagreements.

Ever.

Good points all around. I'll be commenting on them as soon as time allows (at work and currently busy). Thank you all for the input. This is a very interesting thing to get different viewpoints on.

I've met some very good people on the Internet. I sometimes wish I could be friends with them in real life. There is a limit of how much info you should give someone though. Like, even if someone has been a good friend for years, I wouldn't give them my credit card info (With the exeption of Samimista, Lykopis, BumpyBoo, Raiiyn, and Underdogs Overboard).

I cybered with a woman online and then met her a few years later, irl, where we did things for real. I preferred the online.

@YoungJustice said:

I've met some very good people on the Internet. I sometimes wish I could be friends with them in real life. There is a limit of how much info you should give someone though. Like, even if someone has been a good friend for years, I wouldn't give them my credit card info (With the exeption of Samimista, Lykopis, BumpyBoo, Raiiyn, and Underdogs Overboard).

Hahaha. But that limit exists regardless of whether the relationship was founded online or off :P

@wildvine said:

@DarkxSeraph

I am slow to trust new people with personal info, (As Akbogert can tell you). People are just names, till I get to know them. Having said that, I have met a handful of people I consider friends. One person is, in fact, my best friend. We speak on, and off CV. And there are a few people I talk to about RL stuff. So yeah, I have no problem trusting people, if given time to get to know them.

Indeed.

I think the "talking about RL stuff" is key. As someone pointed out earlier, just having some things in common with people is never the basis for an actual friendship. Most relationships you have, no matter where they begin, will be superficial just on the basis that no one has the time or energy to truly get to know everyone they talk to. And there are plenty of relationships which serve a purpose specifically because they are shallow and don't put pressure on either party. What WV says about being "given time to get to know" people as a bridge to trusting them is pretty much universally true. I'm personally open about a lot of things that other people consider too personal to reveal without having established a certain level of trust. But that doesn't mean I'm a completely open book; there are plenty of things about me, and plenty of feelings and ideas and perspectives I have, which will not be known by most people simply because they'll never make a point of getting to know me on that level.

I think the measure of a relationship may be not so much what you have in common, but what you don't have in common that hasn't stopped you from being close. To be able to truly get along well with and enjoy the company of a person despite the fact that you (sometimes very strongly) disagree with them on certain things: that's a lot harder to come by then just being into the same characters or bands. And because it's so easy to shut out people who aren't like-minded, that's probably why so few meaningful relationships develop in Internet communities. But the people who value meeting new friends and put in the effort to do so, I think they'll always be rewarded, just as in real life.

Actually, you know what, I'm done with that. I'm just going to say "physical life," or something, because the phrase is just broken.

There is nothing wrong with internet friends, like offline friends, how much do you value them really depends on how long you have known them and how much each has opened up about the other. I would hope that everyone thinks of one another as people no matter how distant and unconnected they may seem as nothing more than a screen name at first.

I would think the majority of people find their offline friends to rate as more important because of the face-to-face factor Vs. text-to-text as well as the amount of time spend with he offline set is usually significantly more in time and quality.

There are exceptions to this I'm sure, this is just how I see things from my perspective.

Internet friendships are important. IMO they can even be as important as RL friendships. In the 2,5 years that I have been here (because CV was the first forum I actually stayed for more than a month and talked to people), I met some very nice people. People that I happily call friends and a lot of other people, that I might not be close with them as I am with other people but I still like talking to them. I admit it took me a while to open up to them, I am a rather introverted person and I don't really open up to others easily (and still don't but at least not as much as before, online anyway). We have talked about almost everything, from matters regarding to CV to RL stuff (up to a point of course, I admit I still have some qualms about that) but I never really had a problem revealing things about me, like my first name for example. And with some I have even discussed about things I have never talked to with people in RL. So yeah, internet friendships are important to me.

Now, I know that I am never going to meet any of these people in RL, since the vast majority of the people I have talked to either live in a different country in Europe or even across the ocean. Although tbh I don't know if I would ever want to meet those people. Sure we get along just fine here but in RL, we might have hated each other lol Plus, I guess I like the way things are now.

It's sort of complicated.

I know people that I meet online are people and not just names on a screen, but at the same time I know 99% of the people on the internet aren't really themselves in many ways. On the internet you can be whatever you want. You have no limits, no boundaries to hold you back and most importantly no consequences. It's sort of hard to trust somebody online when you know this.

With that said I have met a few great people online and have even met up with one person before and it turned out great. It's not impossible to trust someone online, it's just really rare (at least in my case).

I was gonna respond , but this guy already posted everything I was going to say.

I would also like to put that one, or both, would have to be on the internet constantly in order to stay interested in keep up the friendship or to at least make sure the friend is still active on whatever site you met in. I've been in a situation where I simply didn't have time to be online for too long, or at all, and when I came back a dude I used to talk to everyday and I grew somewhat distant; we didn't have the usual long and random discussions of life, comics, manga, and movies that we use to as much. We're getting back to that point, but it's not nearly the same as it use to be.

I think this is very interesting, Friendships online are in my opinion how well you attempt to engage with somebody and how well the other person "gives" you the time of day, If both people are willing to treat the other like a real friend, it is a friendship.

True, you may not see the "true" side of them as it is online, you will never know what it feels like to be in their presence, but its still real and anybody who says internet friendships are not real, is ignorant.