In the article, “Introduction,” The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, by Howard Rheingold, he discusses online communities and subcultures that have emerged from the internet. Online communities are social aggregations that have emerged from the internet and serve as a communication medium for many people. These communities are able to connect people who regularly have face-to-face contact or most commonly know each other through the internet.
The quote that stands out to me in this article, and was the basis for our class discussion in class on Wednesday was, “Some people use virtual communities as a form of psychotherapy.” While many questioned the validity of this comment, I agree with Rheingold completely. Many people have problems in their day-to-day lives, and they need someone to talk to, and members of these online communities are perfect to talk to. They often have unbiased opinions, since they sometimes don’t know you outside of the online community, and are usually a part of the community for the purpose of helping others.
While many people do have several social relationships outside of the internet, sometimes relationships through the internet are a nice change of pace, and do actually serve as a form of psychotherapy. Being able to leverage the social benefits of face-to-face and online interaction is a challenge of many people today.
An example of pop culture today that applies to this discussion is the emergence of online dating sites. According to a study at
1 comment:
Interesting what you say about the Berkeley study. I did a report on dating websites back in high school several years ago and the usage numbers were a lot lower. Back in the day there were only a couple main online dating sites but today there are dozens of well known sites that are becoming more specialized in users (such as J-date).
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