Online v/s Offline Friendship - Page 2

Originally posted by: -Crescendo-

Thats nice to know :)
I guess it was more of your effort and persuasion that led to the strong bond of friendship.

Originally posted by: epiphany.

The world is jam-packed with people who could hurt you. But the world isn't that generous when it comes to finding people you can be yourself with and stuff. It doesn't matter where we find such people, they are our friends and so they will be with us and sometimes they will let us down too, but mostly, they'd be our friends. Online friendship is real life friendship plus, the fear of judgment is even lesser. The downside is, your bestie on IF could be a middle-aged divorcee who stalks young girls in his free time. But didn't I just mention, this way or that, the world is jam-packed with people who could hurt you?

Originally posted by: anael24

actually i was always a big introvert and here the fact of having a friend not judging your physical appearance or your doings played a part...i rather felt as if i was more confident with an outsider than the friends i have known for years!

Originally posted by: KaanKeNiche

I'm closer to some of my online friends than most of my real life friends. In real life, you always live in fear of judgment and there's no scope of that online. It allows you to keep your anonymity. Only down-side of it I that the person talking to you on the other side could or could not be the person that they claim to be. But what difference does that make if both of you can have great conversations anyway?

Another downside to online friendship is that it can never be regarded as a 'deep' or life-long friendship. Simply because of the anonymity factor.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

The person on the other side of the screen is not electronic data. It is a real person with feelings and emotions. As such online friendship is no different than real world friendship. Instead of meeting and interacting in college, office or a bar, you meet and interact on a forum. You form bonds based on things you have in common. Some people are acquaintances. Some people are friends. And a rare few become BFFs.

In the teens you have the high school like behavior of bitching, backstabbing, turn-coating, ganging up, switching parties and all that kind of drama. Sometimes you have that with the immature adults too. Exactly like how it plays out in real life.

One big difference online is anonymity, something you don't get in real life. It is a double edged sword. It allows you to be cautious, take things slow and avoid revealing more about yourself until you have built rapport. At the same time it also allows people to be reckless and fickle, engaging in behavior they normally wouldn't in real life. It also inhibits the other side from showing their true self sooner too.

Another difference is proximity. You could make a friend abroad or in another city whom you may never see or visit. That happens in real life too. People travel for work and studies so much. Sometimes people don't see their own family for ages.

Online friendship can be for real and supercede real world friendship depending on the people involved.

Originally posted by: -Crescendo-

anonymity is the key which can be advantageous at many levels and not too favorable at many others.