by Mentally Hilarious on Thu May 25, 2006 7:36 am
Ouh, now this is an intresting discussion.
I started out a cynic in my early internet-days. That would be about 5 or 6 years ago that I got broadband. Before that I used Napster and read underground usenetgroups. But since the arrival of a decent, low-priced and constant connection I really started using the internet.
In the beginning I really thought that people who put too much into "e-friends" were idiots and desocial persons that probably smelled and could never e-v-a-h get along with real people in everyday life. But then I started making true friends over text-based communications. And I have never had a problem with friends, neither on the internet nor in person. So that made me start to think that my inital presumptions were wrong. And now I know they are. Because persons shine through, no matter which way they communicate. Body-language is just a qualification and another dimension to communication. Would you ever consider paralyzed people as unsocial or unable to make friends? My hope is that you would not.
Now I know that is a pretty far logical leap. So I'll explain the connection.
Textbased communication is more or less a synthetized form of communication where you scale away the body-language and intonations at the same time as you negate a certain amount of responsiveness. Now tell me if that isn't the exact same things as - say - Steven Hawkings is bound by?
Anywho, the initial question. Right.
I've made loads of good friends through the Internet, from all over the world. I'm stationed in Sweden and have had visitors from Norway, USA, Scotland, Germany and the Netherlands. All through the Internet. And we've gotten along famously. Now I don't keep in contact with all of those people, but during the time we had contact, both over the Internet and in person, we've been true friends. These days I count one of the people I met over the Internet (and now I live in the same town as him, through pure coincidence) as one of my best friends.
The Internet is but another way of making contacts, and friends. Much like in real life you grow apart and loose contact with eachother, but I wouldn't isolate MSN or any other media as the reason for this. It's just human nature.
