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Internet friends and the real world

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Ozymandias:
I've had the internet since I was 9 and have always used it for social interaction. In my earliest days on Prodigy, back when everyone wanted to be AOL and the actual world wide web was a scary no-no zone, I would sit in chat rooms and roleplay that I was a wizard and did magical things and had fights of wits and words. Then I found MUDs where I didn't have to be witty and could just type "kill shit" and shit would be killed.

Eventually, I moved from my life-long home to the big city when I was 14 and had no friends, so I retreated into the internet, mostly the IGN sci-fi message boards where I actually made really, really good friends, some of whom are my friends to this day, and some of whom I have had sexual relations with. My parents were weirded out at first, but so many of the people I know, I know from the internet now, that they stopped caring a long time ago and have accepted them as real people.

Being 22 now, I don't really think I use the internet any differently. My meat friends and internet friends are still pretty much two separate, real classes, the twain rarely meeting, though I will say that my internet friends are probably closer than most of my meat friends, which is weird, but I think more common in the modern era.

benji:
I think online communities are interesting. I work as a trainer and technical support person for people doing online education. Most of the people I deal with directly are professors in their late 30s at the youngest, and not necessarily heavy internet users before they teach their courses. From what I've observed, all age groups are likely to make friends online, but older people are more likely to put an emphasis on physical contact. Those that aren't used to the internet often feel that their relationships with their students, with their fellow instructors, or with me aren't real until they've met these people face to face and shook their hand. Younger folks, or people who have spent more time online anyway, form tighter communities more quickly and don't seem to mind that they haven't met face to face.

Concerning myself, I don't tend to socialize a whole lot online. I usually have one message board that I visit on a regular basis (right now it's here), usually as a way of procrastinating. As such, I really haven't made many close friends online, and most of my close friendships tend to be people I meet in real life first. I naturally have a lot of working relationships that are purely online. I've had close working relationships with lots of people through email, chat rooms, messengers, and phone calls, that I've only met after we'd been working together for years. This was especially true when I was an instructional designer, where I could easily work with someone to develop an entire coriculum of materials long before I ever met them face to face.

pen:
I remember having the internet as early as Prodigy, and my dad would let me chat all day.  My dad was about 45 at the time and was always meeting women to go out with at the time.  When I was a teen, I joined a few different fora, but that's the extent of it.  A few of my friends had met people though.  I didn't get that brave until I was about 20.  Usually it was for a dating thing.  I eventually gave up on that and decided I'd quit trying to find a boy through the internet.  This was a little over a  year before I met Jon.  Go figure.  Meanwhile, my dad gave up on internet dating when he got married 10 years ago (to a woman not from the web).

BrittanyMarie:
When I was younger(14/15) I was all about internet friends with similar interests. People from all over the world and we'd talk all the time. I was probably online way more than I should have been, to be honest.

I guess I still use the internet to make friends(22), but they're people from the area anyway. Usually they end up being people who are regulars at the bar/venue I usually hang out at, or other downtowners.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: Barmymoo on 03 Jun 2008, 13:33 ---My current vague hypothesis is that young people are more likely to make new friends via the internet, whilst older generations use it more to sustain existing, real life friendships.
--- End quote ---

That seems a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to investigate, though I doubt it will be sustained.  

My mother in her 80s and 90s used the web, but never mastered email - so neither new nor existing friendships there; neutral for the hypothesis.  

I (who am well into your older group) have been using email for nearly 25 years at work (I worked for a forward-looking computer company during the 80s), and for 17 years at home (my first ISP had about 50 modems spread around the UK when I joined them); 17 years ago I also joined a bulletin board (the forerunner of the Internet forum).  Email has been almost entirely for sustaining friendships, in one case enabling me to get a new job with a former boss I'd renewed contact with initially through the bulletin board; whereas bulletin boards, forums, and mailing lists (OK, some email then) have been for new ones.  As a result of contacts on the Internet I have been able to rewind parts of my life which I had dropped when I had to choose a path at the start of my working career, and pick them up and continue them. [I won't start on about the actual stuff here, as I'd never stop.]

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