The Drawbacks of Online Friendships

The trouble with online friendships is their transient nature. When you’re bored and lonely, it’s easy to look for someone you can make a brief connection with in a chat room or on a social networking site, as it passes the time. However, even if you exchange email addresses or become Skype buddies, there is no guarantee you will ‘talk’ again. You just don’t have the same bond as you do with the individuals you encounter in your everyday life – out of sight, out of mind as they say. In real life, you encounter people and you build a bond with them that is harder to break.

That is not to say there is no value in online friendships, but you have to be prepared to put the time and energy into getting to know someone and just because you email regularly and try to keep in contact, your online ‘friend’ may not be quite as committed. It’s frustrating, because usually all you have is their email address, and you can’t keep inundating them with messages until you get a response, because if they don’t want to write back, they won’t. Of course, real-life friends can ignore you, too, but it tends to be a lot more difficult when you’re standing face-to-face and you’re usually given some kind of explanation.

Friends tend to be people you can rely on in a crisis; people who will help you out and support you when things go wrong, but with online friends, you don’t get the same kind of immediacy. You may send an email, but you don’t know when you’re going to get a response. There is also the possibility that your online friend is stringing you along and is not really who he or she claims to be. You could find yourself revealing all sorts of personal details, only to discover that you’re being used for some reason. Your ‘friend’ may end up trying to use the information you’ve provided against you, blackmailing you or trying to hack into any online accounts you may have.

There is always an element of risk when trying to build up any kind of friendship, though. Even when you think you know someone in person, they could quite easily be holding something back or lying about themselves. However, being online makes it much easier for individuals to get away with such behaviour, as individuals can hide behind their online personae. Although it is possible to build long-lasting online friendships, for most people the novelty soon wears off and after a few weeks or months of corresponding, the level of interaction tails off.

The Benefits of Online Friendships

There are individuals who tend to belittle online friendships, claiming that you can’t really be friends with someone you have never met. However, to those who invest a great deal of time and energy into their online friendships, they are very real. Of course, there are different types of online friendship. Sometimes, you connect with someone, because it gives you an opportunity to share your writing or promote your blog. However, there are occasions when you discover that you have something in common with a person who you randomly added as a friend, and you begin to build a more solid friendship.

Online friendships work in pretty much the same way as real-life friendships, in that you ask each other questions and discover more about each other’s upbringing, education, career, family, interests and beliefs. The only significant difference is that instead of sitting across a table, face-to-face, you are probably typing away at a computer. Perhaps there isn’t quite as much fulfilment from an online friendship, since you can’t simply agree to meet up for a drink or do something together, as you could in real life. However, for some people offline relationships are harder to come by. If you live an isolated existence, then it might be the case that online friendship is all you have.

Some people struggle to interact with other individuals in their everyday lives, and so online friendships enable them to connect with other people who may have similar problems. It could be that building online friendships enables them to escape their problems, so that they don’t have to worry about the fact they’re not very good in social situations. Online friends may not seem real to other people, but when you have spent months or years exchanging emails and chatting on instant messenger, only you are aware of the bond you have built up. It feels as if you understand each other, and it is reassuring to know you have someone to confide in.

There may be some individuals online who choose to lie about who they are and so construct elaborate identities for themselves, but this is a pretty rare occurrence. If they are trying to get money out of you or manipulate you in some way, it won’t take long to find out the truth. In most cases, online friendships are built on mutual interests or shared experiences. Some people decide that they are close enough to their online friends to actually meet up with them, whilst for others this just isn’t an option. Although the Internet has enabled people from all over the world to connect, it hasn’t made travelling hundreds of miles any more practical! Even if there is no chance of meeting an online pal offline, it doesn’t mean that their friendship is any less worthwhile.