PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 45: Internet Friends: True or False ...

by Tracy V. Wilson | February 27, 2012

I?ve returned from the vacation I took with my Internet friends and am back to doing show notes. Did you miss me? We put the idea for this subject on the big idea board pretty much when we started working on PopStuff. My vacation on the nerd boat just made it particularly apt timing, considering when we recorded it (right before) and when it published (right after).

• Scholarship on Internet friendships is divided, for many many many reasons.
• A lot of the scholarship is also kind of old, because it?s from the early flourishing of the Internet.
• BBSs, dial-up modems and local phone calls
• A brief survey of the prevailing theories dominating discussion of online friendships, as summarized in the paper ?Liberating or debilitating? An examination of romantic relationships, sexual relationships and friendships on the Net?
• Whether you like people better more if you meet them in real life first vs. online first
• The clarification I alluded to: In a study of two groups, one group met in real life first, and the other met online first. Then both groups met each other in person. The group who met online first liked one another better in both meetings than the people who met one another in person first.
• I?m allegedly a robot
• Attachment style (particularly fearful people and preoccupied people) and online relationships, and how that relates to self-esteem and how you perceive others
• The general conclusion we reached: In spite of the disparities in the scholarship, we?re better off with the Internet for friendships than without it.
• Listener mail! This is one of the many messages about Disney princesses. Holly is appropriately abashed over having left Pocahontas out of the ?real princess? roster.
• ?What is friendship??

My research:

• Bargh, John A. and Katelyn Y.A. McKenna. ?The Internet and Social Life.? Annual Review of Psychology. 2004.
• Boase, Jeffrey and Barry Wellman. ?Personal Relationships: On and Off the Internet.? Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Coget, Jean-Francois et al. ?The Internet, Social Networks and Loneliness.? IT & Society. Vol. 1, Issue 1, Summer 2001.
• McKenna, Katelyn Y.A. et al. ?Relationship Formation on the Internet: What?s the Big Attraction?? Journal of Social Issues. Vol. 58, No. 1, 2002.
• Morahan-Martin, Janet. ?Loneliness and Social Uses of the Internet.? Computers in Human Behavior. Vol. 19, 2003.
• Whitty, Monica T. ?Liberating or debilitating? An examination of romantic relationships, sexual relationships and friendships on the Net.? Computers in Human Behavior. Vol. 24, 2008.
• Wolak, Janis et al. ?Close Online Relationships in a National Sample of Adolescents.? Adolescence. Vol. 37 No. 147, 2002.

Holly?s research:

Episode link: Internet Friends: True or False?

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Tags: friendship, Internet, PopStuff Show Notes

Source: http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2012/02/27/popstuff-show-notes-episode-45-internet-friends-true-or-false/

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