Cyberspace

If my recollection is correct, I don't believe that I have ever made or had a friendship EXCLUSIVELY online. My father was always very protective over the Internet, and heavily regulated the people I talked to online. Most of my online interactions have been through electronic emails, synchronous chats, and with the enrollment of online classes, asynchronous discussion formats. Even though most of the people I speak to online are people whom I have f2f relationships with, the interaction is still a little bit different. I am a little bit of a girly girl, and when I have f2f interactions with others I usually like to look presentable, unlike when I'm talking to someone online on my laptop in my PJ's. My online discussions are also usually shorter and more to the point than my face to face interactions. My online relationships usually complement or support my face to face interactions, but I could assume some of the differences exclusive online relationship could have compared to f2f. I know when I talk to my friends online, their reactions are not always instant. When you are in a f2f conversation, you can see the emotion, hear the tone of voice, and understand the context of a real life situation. Online I could see how miscommunication may be inevitable due to the unavailability of non-verbal cues, and the allowance for a communicator to delay a response.

The closest cyber-relationship I have is with my colleagues and professors of my online classes. Because we use an asynchronous discussion format, I have got to learn a little bit about a lot of people over the course of my summer session. I can say that we have formed cyber-relationships , but I don't think I have ever formed a personal cyber-relationship. I guess I have been taught that the Internet can be full of predators which may or may not be the case. With strict rules, and fear, instilled by my father about Internet chatting and posting of personal photos made me a little reluctant to form relationships with people online unless I also knew them in person as well. Someday this might change as it is becoming more and more acceptable to form relationships online with websites such as E-harmony and the like.