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This image came to me from Imagine What I'm Leaving Out. It hit her desktop via email, and I can't find anyone to credit for it. But it perfectly illustrates the concept of finding emotional connection and satisfaction from online relationships.
There is a counter current of dissatisfaction with online relationships taking the place of real life interaction. You see in reflected in things like the Appleby's restaurant ads where the voice of Wanda Sykes speaks from an apple urging people to "get it together, baby." Or in this Opus comic from Jan. 27, 2008. These complaints that virtual reality is less satisfactory than real life don't change the inherent satisfaction one's gets from online relationships. In the virtual world, there's always someone there who wants to discuss any topic you might want to discuss, no matter how obscure.
As long as humans have been able to read and write, we have communicated with each other by reading and writing. The Internet removes the middle layer of that interaction and makes it a direct contact between readers and writers. Now we have a proliferation of means to tweet, chat, comment, play games, blog, podcast, and join listservs of interest to enable that direct read/write connection. Online relationships have become part of our emotional landscape.
Many bloggers cherish the online relationships they've built up. People feel connected and supported by like-minded online friends. Often online friendships turn into real life friendships that form with fast-forward speed, because the people involved already feel as if they know each other.
Punditmom describes her journey into blogging and why finding online relationships made the journey easier.
I was afraid that was what the blogosphere would be be like -- a place of big names and then the rest of us.
I didn't expect to make real friends along the way. Friends I wish I would have had in junior high school.
But I did. I met people in cyberspace, and then met them in person, and found out that making friends -- really good friends -- could be easy-peasy. Somehow, we found each other -- kindred spirits who connected easily and found that conversation could go on for hours (with or without wine) because we had more on common than we thought -- kids, jobs, spouses, bad TV. Things that connect us more than divide us.
And that makes life really good. And tonight, I'm happy for that. Because that makes me understand that I'm not alone on this journey. There are others who I have more in common with than I ever could have imagined. And spending time with them and connecting in person and confirming what I suspected through cyberspace communications makes me happy.
Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By describes why elderbloggers find such satisfaction in forming online relationships.
As people get older, their social worlds can shrink. Children and grandchildren may live thousands of miles away. In retirement, there is no longer the daily interaction with colleagues, nor the easy opportunity for making new friends at work. Old friends and relatives die. And sometimes, mobility issues keep elders from getting out and about as easily or frequently as in the past.
And although it is a new phenomenon, the friendships forged through blogging become as important, close and caring as with our in-person friends.
At Home and Veggie Blog, Vegiemama counts the "Things I Like Today."
My online friends. All of them. July 97 moms, my hsing friends, you're all my support line. I know you're there when I need you and I hope I can be as good of a friend to you, as you've been to me.
After a long period of exchanges with an online friend, a level of trust develops. People meet up in real life with a sense of knowing each other and a sense of what the other person is like that creates the willingness to connect in real life. At Backup Brain, in the post Nice Place, Good People, We Must be in Wellington, we hear the story of how an online friend from New Zealand (Miraz Jordan) squired visitors Tom Negrino and Dori Smith about her home city.
On Halloween, we spent the day in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Rather than do some tour arranged by the cruise line, we spent the day with the fabulous Miraz, who lives here. She thoughtfully arranged the Dori and Tom 2006 Tour Itinerary.
We had a great day in Wellington, and
