Online Dating and Other Such Social Communities

Upon moving back onto campus this semester, I went through an interview process to judge if I was ready to do so, as my housing contract had been cancelled my freshman year for certain circumstances. When the interviewer asked me about the extent of my social interactions, the first thing that I thought of was my interactions online.

Granted, I do have real life interactions: I play an open mic in Bowie every Monday night, and I go on dates, hang out with friends, work, and attend classes where I have both friends and acquaintances. However, living in my parents' house created a situation much like the one described in Danah Boyd's talk about MySpace: the space that I lived in was controlled, and the internet was a social meeting place untouchable by my parents.

When I was required to stay in late at night for one reason or another, I was still able to make social connections through AIM, MySpace and theFacebook.

However, Cummings, Butler and Kraut suggest that social connections online are not as strong or viewed as important as actual relationships. This was suggested by my interviewer. I disagree. So long as the relationships one maintains online are with the same people one maintains IRL, they can be just as meaningful. On that same note, online relationships that are formed through other IRL friends can have the same power.

Thanks to past experience, I do not talk to people online that I don't know. However, I am perfectly happy talking to a stranger if it is someone that another of my friends reccommends. Such is the case with many of my long-distance friends who I don't see often. I feel just as close and open to these people as ones that I see offline.

****relevant link****

Microsoft has a new computer system, and it looks pretty neat! There are a few things that I've found wrong with it so far, but it's the beginning of something different and new that will change our social world.

www.microsoft.com/surface