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Path: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!hplabs!hao!nbires!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!anderson
From: anderson@uwmacc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.social
Subject: Electronic Relationships
Message-ID: <162@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Aug-86 23:03:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.162
Posted: Wed Aug 13 23:03:53 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Aug-86 02:17:55 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 61

Greg Woods writes:

>...it is easier to talk about intimate things ...

Can you give a list of instances, please?

>with people I do not know well...

Can they be characterized in any general way?

>by e-mail than in person.

[Good point comes next about the distance of e-mail
 allowing for reaction time, which face-to-face does not.]
[Good point comes next about face-to-face immediate
 feedback is a big help in day-to-day matters.]

Chris Anderson writes:

>...we never really talked [while meeting face-to face
>a person known previously only by computer]....I think
>I might be to blame for this because my expectations
>were so high.

Do you recall more detail about these expectations?
Can you (delicately, I suppose) characterize what it was
like qualitatively compared to your earlier expectations?

>...I'm a better converationalist on the computer.

Better in what way? How do you account for that? Are
you sure it's not just your impression (that is, have
you checked it out later with someone you also knew
face-to-face)?

[Personal aside: Chris, you goin' away for good? I liked
 what you were saying, so say a lot more before you go, OK?]

For the purposes of the discussion, responses and speculations
from others than just these two posters could be illuminating.
What I'm trying to get at is: what is that *really* 
differentiates these two modes of one-on-one dealing ?
Is there something significantly different (in the electronic
mode) about the one-to-many relationship, and so on.

Chris's last point, about loss feelings when he left the
net, brings up an additional issue: what are the dangers
of electronic relationships? For example: Scenario: You're
a shy person made bold by favorable responses of your
net friends. Someone flames you mercilessly. Is your
experience qualitatively different from the analogous
"real" one? [What the hell should we *call* these two
modes? ER mode for electronic relationships? 3D for "real"
ones?]
-- 

==UUCP: {harvard,seismo,topaz,  =========================Jess Anderson======
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| ARPA:                    anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu   Madison, Wi 53706 |
| BITNET:                            anderson@wiscmacc   608/263-6988      |
==If there is no other, there is no I.===================(Chuang Tsu)=======