> Basing a friendship or relationship on the internet and expecting more from
> the net than it can really provide is sure to cause dissapointment. If
> people use the internet to make a new friend, or use it as a substitute to
> phone calls, visits, dinners, etc. in maintaining a relationship, of course
> they're going to find that it just isn't as fulfilling as a rel. that has
> some amount of personal contact.
I am very surprised to hear you say this. I grew up infront of a terminal
and have made many friendships through it. Never considered that they may
have been lacking something...
Can you explain to me the different between talking to a person on the
telephone, irc, email, or face to face? Is there some bits that are
essential to friendship that are only transmitted by phsyical proximity?
Of course they are all different and have their own charateristic
properties - seems to be that the important point is that they are all
communiction and perhaps it is the qualities of communication (caring,
comraderie, history, and the like) that determine the human value not the
particular transport protocol.
However, I don't dispute the end result of what you are saying - internet
computing is not on the whole an uplifting humanistic experience.
Why is that? Will XML allow us to mark up a Friendship interface for our
communications?
cya,
TiM