The Impact of Online Communities on Physica Social Relationships

My freshman year of high school everyone was obsessed with Farmville. I know people who would spend hours playing the game and would even set reminders to collect their crops before they would go bad. Now however, most people that I know do not play the game anymore because they simply grew tired of it. I decided to focus on the social interactions in real time on Second Life because I wanted to not only look at how people interact in online games but also look at the avatars and worlds they spend hours creating. I first looked at what and how people talked to each other, then looked at how people customize their online world, and finally looking at some of the pros and cons of having an online world.

Users are too immersed in the digital world and do not present enough in the real world. The need for communication and personal interaction is not met through technology and users do not get the same level of connection when engaging with others online compared to personal interaction. The result is social isolation. Richtel, in his article, talks about how empathy is affected by technology stating, “Heavy technology use can diminish empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another” (Richtel 7). Internet use interferes with basic empathy skills, making the ability to share the feelings of another impossible.

The positives, mainly about a user becoming more outspoken and less shy both online and in real life, are noticeably fewer in count than their more troubling counterparts. The negatives, as expressed by Aboujaoude, mainly include how, with modern communication increasing tremendously through means of the Internet, people are creating online versions of themselves that are completely separate and different from their offline self. Aboujaoude asserts that the typical “e-personality” is irresponsible, selfish, and encourages us to chase unrealistic goals in pursuit of social media

In Life is Friends, Martinet, an author known for her knowledge on the art of mingling, justifies the reason for why connecting with others in person is lost and declares that “All too many people make the mistake of looking for friends who can further their career or their social standing” (Martinet). The public cares too much about their status in society and the way that people view them. Humans attempt to depict themselves in a way that makes them appear “cool” or “fit in” with everyone else. Technology is just one outlet that people constantly use to paint a picture of themselves for the rest of the world to see. While in real life, a person may not even closely resemble their social media profile. Therefore, it is often tricky for those that care about their status to have a natural conversation with others for fear of not portraying themselves accurately. Face to face conversations are also on the decline because people care too much about their social standing and would prefer to only talk to friends that can improve

Through computer applications such as Second Life and Twitter, we create personas that we wish we could be. The Internet allows us to express the side of us that is too afraid to come out in real life because of social judgement.

In Chapter 11, Sherry Turkle claims that the online words and massive multiplayer online role-playing games, gives virtuosity and fantasy- and something more; your performances put you at the center of a new community with virtual best friends and a sense of belonging. Most people that play the virtual game “A Second Life,” feel like their avatars are used as “practice” for real life. Their lives on screen may be play, but they are serious play.

At the age of eight, all I have put effort on learning was begin competitive. The only one interest that became my addition of mine leads to my brother, who has introduced the Toon Town, an online gaming system, where every toon at different level have the opportunity to fight against the cogs with the amount of supplies they have; thereafter, the ones that survives through the fight earns toons’ laughter points to raise their toon levels up from the range as low as twenty-five to an extend as one-hundred thirty seven. The article by Sarah Adams, Be Cool to the pizza Dude demonstrates the ideal example of interacting with community. On the other hand, MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless is an article by the Onion, online networking news publisher convey the downhill side of having to deal with malfunction of their habitual social networking site. Becoming part of an online gaming community makes us all feel good since an online community meets people’s expectation for accepting who they really are truly defining that virtual community is a real community.

How easy is it to start a conversation with someone we see online? Do we often think about the what we post online or the debates and discussions we go into? Do we our comments and likes affects people mentally and psychology? In today's generation, it is quite easy to have a more followers than friends. More than 80% of U.S household reported computer ownership and 74.4% of Americans households use the internet (U.S Census Bureau). This number is unrealistically high and should have us wondering the different services they are using it for plus what harm and risks those services bring. Everything people do now has internet use and the growth is rapid. The thousands of friends we have online would not make up for the physical interaction

Second Life is a virtual world that is shaped by its users, also known as residents. Since its origin in 2003, Second Life has seen millions of users sign up and today the virtual world has a million users log-in regularly. The virtual world allows its residents to create avatars and customize them to their liking. Users create a whole virtual reality for themselves and Second Life gives them a platform to express themselves in ways they normally would not in real life. Connections and friendships are made from every part of the globe.

For the young generation, in particular, the online relationships are as influential and evocative as the face-to-face relationships. In addition, as broadcasting and broadband technologies are being accessed by more and more people, the swiftness and suppleness with which the world inhabitants are communicating and socializing (both online and offline) is increasing day by day. As far as the virtual space is

Psychologists would enhance their knowledge about how different social media networks affect the behavior of people who use the internet. Discussing the contents of chapter eight would help psychologists due to how it explains the way people act in the virtual world compared to the real world and would help them figure out why the majority would prefer that life compared to the real one. An abundance of people online displays different personalities compared to how they act in the real world, which psychologists could use to observe and bring up their own conclusions referring to how people behave. Furthermore, the chapters discussing blogs and Twitter in several ways would also assist them to determine a different perspective of how people act

With this, online friendships are a self-seeking prophecy. This idea diverges from the original studies of online relationships, which discovered that internet users are lonelier than those with less access to the internet (Tufecki 7). The more recent study of the hyperpersonal nature of today’s society online, known as “Seek and Ye Shall Find”, found the opposite to be true, emphasizing that individuals who believe that online friendships and strong relationships can be gained through those networks have much higher odds (52%) of acquiring new friends (Tufecki 7) and benefit most from online interactions. The hyperpersonal nature of the cyberspace comes to be seen as a space for people to be freer of social judgment due to the mediated communication deemphasizing appearance and shifting its focus towards

The virtual community has expanded around the and now positively affects everyday social life by helping some to find companionship, social interactions, and discovering one 's personal identity.

In modern society, the demand for new technology is at a steady rate and everyday millions of social media profiles are being created. Virtual profiles have allowed for people to believe in unrealistic thought that the power of a virtual communities, in which ideas are shared and thoughts are heard, result in long lasting relationships and undeniable happy results. It is relatively easy to fool internet users to follow the “social revolution” into creating their own personal “happy” story through social media, in turn, they are supposed to experience happiness and create strong social bonds; thus, when the reality of being interconnected is put on a spotlight it is evident that the negative effects of being interconnected are present.

Social sites are a beneficial way to communicate, however, it affects a person’s ability to communicate face to face with others. Many people spend much of their leisure time online rather than connecting with the offline world. In a specific article, a participant spends several hours each day updating her profile instead of talking face to face with others (Livingstone 399). Being online more than offline, decreases people’s abilities to interact with others who are disconnected. Furthermore, by communicating online also contributes to misrepresentation, which leads to misreading a text, leading to mixed emotions of a person who wrote the message. Therefore, social networking reduces an emotional aspect between people as it is hard to tell what a person is feeling through text. In addition, people lack confidence talking to an individual physically rather than virtually. In an