Are online relationships the same as offline one?
Personally i dont think the relationships could ever be the same. There could be some similarities but as far as being the same goes, theres no way. Think of a conversation with someone on the phone, and then talking to that person face-to- face; theres some things you might say to them on the phone and not any other way, the conversation might be limited because of bad connection or the amount of credit you have, you might not be able to contact the person because their phone might be turned off. This would be the same as online, its asychronous; you could send someone an email and they might not respond to days and the response you do get might not be what you wanted.
Ultimately theres always the issue of people not being who they say they are online. In terms of online gaming, you've got people who might create avatars; a term that refers to an interactive representation of a human in a virtual reality environment. A person could change their name, their gender, their age etc. Therefore if a relationship was made through the use of avatars, there might be a possibility that its not the real them.
However Taylor that there's a 'tradition within online communities for online friends and gaming partners to get together for face-to-face meetings' (2:2006) Also there was an online newspaper article which shows how the chinese government 'will start real-name registration for online game players this year' (Peoples Daily Online january 2009). Therefore there are some controls within the web; to stop people creating false personalities, but this doesnt make online and offline relationships the same. It all comes down to the difference in communication, the interactivity, the navigation, its completely different.
Taylor, T, L. (2006) Play Between Worlds, Published MIT Press
Peoples Daily Online (2009) Online gamers have to give real names http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90781/90877/6575252.html
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Rincy. : )
ReplyDeleteI think there's a couple of questions here though. First, are people always entirely honest about who they are offline? OK - it is difficult to disguise whether you are male or female, but as to other features of a person, if, for instance, you met them at a pub or in a supermarket, how would you know that what they told you about themselves was true?
ReplyDelete...and second, are relationships only about the medium of communication?
There's definately two sides to this argument; there's no denying that. I understand what your saying however i'm still going to stick to my onvictions about online relationships. Its not the fact that these relationships are online and so people might not be who they say they are, im just saying that its purely not the same as face to face relationships. I would say the same about people writing letters to eachother.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to meet someone in the supermarket, you could maybe trust them more; looking at their facial expressions, seeing if their sincere in what their saying or not. Plus once you've seen someone in person there's a chance that you might see them again, this might spark them to be truthful as theres no avatar to hide behind.
As for answering whether relationships are based only on communication? I honestly dont see how they can exist without it. It's about communicating in many ways; through facial expressions, through a gift, talking, a hug. These are all forms of communicating. A relationship wouldn't develop otherwise.