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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: The "Reality" of Electronic Communication
Message-ID: <2436@pucc-h>
Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 05:14:17 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.2436
Posted: Thu Nov 14 05:14:17 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 08:38:51 EST
References: <917@cvl.UUCP> <352@whuts.UUCP> <11@ttidcc.UUCP> <1617@teddy.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 37
Summary: It's an excellent icebreaker

In article <1617@teddy.UUCP>, lkk@teddy.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) writes:

> The advantages of letter writing are also its limitations.  Because
> honesty and forthrightness are so easy in an exchange of letters, there
> is never any real trust that needs to be built between two people in
> such a relationship.  I think that an important part of building a
> real relationship is the development of a reflexive feeling of trust
> between the two people.  That's not an intellectual trust, but a deep
> seated emotional trust.  This sort of trust is not built thru
> intellectual processes, but thru low level emotional ones, the kind
> that are only activated thru personal contact.

In my own experience, it doesn't take a lot of personal contact with
longtime net friends to engender this visceral sort of trust.  Between my
first net contact with one of my closest net friends and our first meeting
in person, over 8 months elapsed; sure we experienced some awkwardness when
we first met without electronic aid (or interference), but not for long; we
ended up conversing for 4 hours or so, on all sorts of subjects (some of them
quite sensitive), with no significant gaps that I remember.  So the honesty
and forthrightness of our correspondence did carry over into our personal
relationship.

On the other hand, it is certainly true that sending or receiving the
phrase "consider yourself hugged", while the thought is nice and does
have some positive effect, just doesn't have quite the same impact as an
actual hug.  Furthermore, if I had known Snoopy only electronically, I
could never have taught him that there's nothing wrong with two male
friends hugging each other.

So personal contact still wins overall.  But I don't think contact by
correspondence is quite as bleak as Kolodney makes out.

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h!aeq
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune(6)...."