Online 'friends'

This week I am looking at online relationships. There are advantages and disadvantages to forming a relationship online. A big advantage to forming relationships online, is that people can talk about things they may not feel comfortable talking about in real life. For example somebody who may have suffered from child abuse can join online websites such as oneinfor.ie and talk to fellow survivors. Such people can maintain there anonymity as-well as forming new relationships on such websites. 


Also people can form online friendships with people that have similar interests. I follow people on twitter that I have talked with on Liverpool fc forums and they follow me. These people share the same interest as me. Although I am not friends with them, we have formed a relationship none the less. We only talk about football on forums and blogs but without the online medium, such a relationship would not be possible. I will never have to meet these people or know anything else about them other than the fact that they are fellow Liverpool fans. I enjoy talking on such forums with fellow fans that share the same passion.


However with advantages often come disadvantages. For example, although there are many benefits of dating online, there is always a risk of the person behind the avatar not being the person they say they are. There are always predators online that look to prey on victims. Child abuse is a problem when it comes to online relationships. These predators groom their victims and if they consider it safe, will arrange to meet their victim. This stage is known as exclusivity. Pedophiles are not the only problem. If somebody arranges to meet somebody offline that they have met online, they must always assesses the risk involved. There are always bad apples that let the side down when it comes to online dating.


Online predators are not the only example of the disadvantages of online friendships. Sharing a passion with somebody online is not always a good thing. For example there are websites online where people encourage hatred on a small minority or somebody with different skiln colour etc. Relationships that are formed on such sites can often lead to violence offline.


This week in class we looked at an example of a 13 year girl in america who formed a friendship with a supposed boy of the same age online. The girl, Megan Meier thought she'd become good friends with the boy 'Josh Evans'. However the boy turned viciously on the girl. Megan, who was attracted to the boy, was so distraught that she hung herself. The parents discovered after an investigation that it was a neighbour, mother to a girl who Megan knew, who had created a fictional account. The full story can be read here.


So does the possibility for deception naturally increase in an online setting?. . . .
There will always be deception offline. However, online is cheap, affordable and accessible. Traditionally deception requires courtship. Offline, if for whatever reason you decide you want to have an affair, you have to court the women/man. You have to impress them and even then there is no guarantee anything will come of it. Now there are sites such as haveanaffair.com , which make having an affair easier and more affordable. The fact there are no strings attached to such sites also make deception more appealing. However this is only one example of deception. The film catfish shows a mid aged women deceiving a young photographer. Without her online profile, it simply would not have been possible to carry out such deception because she was caring for her husbands sons 24/7. However at night time she was able to live a life she created for herself online. Without the online environment Megan Meier might still be alive.


Well thats enough blogging around for this week.


P.S
I forget.