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Submitted by morrisminor5 on January 22, 2007
Category: Technology
Words: 2037 | Pages: 9
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The Benefits/Non-benefits of Online Interactions
1. Introduction
The internet has become a more and more relied upon medium in peoples' everyday lives over the past decades since its inception. People use it to do their shopping, do their taxes, research any number of topics, and engage in communications. People send emails to one another, receive online help with various problems, and carry on real time conversations using chat rooms and instant messengers. Several studies have been completed to test whether this seemingly increasing reliance on internet-mediated social communication is beneficial or detrimental to communication skills and social interaction. It has been found in these previous studies that the results are quite contradicting. Such studies that are developed to test the positive nature of this new communication medium have found that the internet is complimentary and that relationships borne online are healthy and have positive implications. One such study, "Online Chat Rooms: Virtual Spaces of Interaction for Socially Oriented People," found that online relationships are not only rich and genuine in character, but are more quickly set up and straight-forward than face-to-face encounters, cutting out the uncomfortable first meeting jitters that many people face. In an on-the-go society, this is very appealing and beneficial. Another study which revealed the positive attributes of internet-mediated communication is "Psychological Predictors of Internet Social Communication." This study concluded that online social communication is more likely to be an outlet for sociable persons, rather than a compensatory mechanism for the shy and anxious. Each study reveals that communication online is an extension of traditional social behaviors, not a replacement.
Other proposals seek to find the relationship between internet communication and diminishing social skills, also relating loneliness and depression to increasing...
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