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From: ins_alal@jhunix.UUCP (cloudbuster)
Newsgroups: net.social
Subject: Re: Electronically Mediated Human Relationships
Message-ID: <3349@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Aug-86 16:19:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: jhunix.3349
Posted: Fri Aug  8 16:19:15 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Aug-86 03:22:39 EDT
References: <124@uwmacc.UUCP> <1009@tekig5.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_alal@jhunix.zuucp (cloudbuster)
Distribution: na
Organization: Work, Maryland
Lines: 34

In article <1009@tekig5.UUCP> chrisa@tekig5.UUCP (Chris Andersen) writes:
>In article <124@uwmacc.UUCP> anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) writes:
>>A topic that intrigues me greatly is the emergence of person-
>>to-person relationships mediated entirely by electronic (non-
>>television) means. 
......
>
>There is of course a danger that you can get too wrapped up in the potentials
>of EC to the point where other forms of communication (such as face to face)
>are unused.  But if you are careful to watch out for that, EC can be a wonderful
>tool.
>
>			Chris Andersen (chrisa@tekig5)

And as an example of this:  I struck up an electronic friendship with
someone around a year and 1/2 ago.  After we had been corresponding for
around 6 months, I decided that the next time I saw him in the terminal
room that I was going to go over and talk to him.  I sat down, introduced
myself, and was promptly (more or less) ignored.  He mumbled a few things,
I tried to talk to him, ended up making small talk (ugh!), and he never
once looked at me, just kept staring at his terminal.  After about 5
minutes of this, he made some excuse to leave.  Next day, I received
another letter, just as usual, as if nothing had ever happened.  I still
haven't figured out why people are much shier in person than over a
computer.  Perhaps it has something to do with faceless anonymity...

-- 

Laurah Limbrick @ Johns Hopkins University

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