For our last blog we were given a choice. I’m going to examine why internet community can never truly replace real life community. The internet has truly become a central part of how we stay in touch with the news and each other but, as we are in the midst of the holiday season, I stop to think could I see myself communing with my family around the Thanksgiving table in Second Life and would I be happy with that interaction. Not a chance.
I think a part of a relationship and the formation and strengthening of a relationship is the effort you put into it. It is also the perception of how much effort you put into a relationship. My parents and I drove 6 hours to the city this Thanksgiving and everyone was so happy to see us because we don’t often make the trek. While I was in town I met up with my best friends who recently graduated. We planned a dinner and most of us managed to make it there the night before Thanksgiving.
After taking the train an hour from Queens to
Hunter cites Networks in the Global Network by Wellman and Gulia, and they speculate that online communities don’t take away from offline communities. I think that yes the numbers decrease in offline communities, but that is not because people are completely forgoing associating with these groups because of the internet. I think it is because we are just living in a more complicated world and we can’t always make time to go out to club meetings, or other associations. However, that doesn’t mean we do not miss being a part of these communities.
Hunter hypothesizes that he thinks that is we lose the physical aspects of community that we could lose the benefits that come with community. I wholeheartedly agree. According to Li (2007), a true friendship requires real time shared experiences. I think that is why the best friends I have were the ones I made during when I pledged. I think that’s also why friendships I’ve had with people I haven’t spent time with often have deteriorated. Sometimes when you get to the point where you are deciding whether or not it’s worth trying to save a relationship you look at the times you spent together and whether or not you could live without more moments like that. I recently broke up with one of my best friends and I thought about the times we spent, and yes they were great, but I didn’t see her making an effort to spend time building our relationship, so I let it go.
According to and article on Wikipedia by Kornblum (2006), people have begun to depend more on their family for social support because of the lack of close confidants. I can definitely see that happening around me. I think this is because the internet has made people lazy in cultivating true friendships, and then they have no one to fall back on except family, who is obligated to be their support system.
In conclusion, we can all think of relationships we have that are maintained using the internet, but the one’s that are most satisfying and supportive are the ones where we spend time with that person or group and make an effort to be there for them and vice versa. I think this holiday season is the perfect time to make the effort to let the people we love know that we appreciate them by taking the time out of our day to catch up with each other and have coffee or dinner.
References
Hunter, B. The subtle benefits of face to face communication. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from The subtle benefits of face to face communication Web site: http://www.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/facetoface.html
Kornblum, J. (2006 June 22).
Li, L. (2007, October 7). Green Marketing 2.0. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from Search Marketing & Web 2.0 Strategies for Green & Social Activism Web site: http://lornali.com/index.php?tag=community
