The Problems with Meeting People Online
The online possibilities for social interaction are growing significantly. We are getting drawn into meeting people online, but this is definitely not a magic fix for ones social life.
From online forums to dating websites,
from Facebook to blogs, the possibilities for meeting people online are increasing like crazy. A lot of people are hoping that the online environment will provide an easy and safe environment for them to meet and connect with people.
Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Meeting people from the comfort of your own home, via the Internet, may sound good, but it creates some serious practical problems. Here are the most important ones.
1. Lack of authenticity. Individuals will often paint a false image of themselves online. As opposed to in-person communication, online communication, especially via text, makes it really easy for somebody to lie and be disingenuous. So you’re not building a relationship with a real person, you’re building it with their false self-projection.
2. A superficial connection. There is nothing as effective as in-person interaction in generating an emotional connection between people. Communicating with people online, even if you use voice and video, is still quite distant and shallow. It’s almost impossible to build a strong relationship this way.
3. A hard time meeting. Suppose you do decide to meet face to face with a person you’ve interacted with online, to deepen the connection. Since the Internet gets people interacting from all over the world, there are a lot of chances that person lives in another country or even on another continent than you. Meeting periodically in this case is very hard and consuming, both in terms of time and money.
4. A way to avoid real interactions. As a communication coach, I often find that the people who are hoping to meet others online and make friends this way are often quite shy. So for them, this is a way to avoid meeting people in-person because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, this only reinforces shyness and it often eventually handicaps them completely when it comes to having face to face interactions.
Meeting people online might be something to consider, but only as a complement to meeting and interacting with people in person. Take care how you use it and don’t make your social life dependent on it.
