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kleinbl00  ·  4076 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The internet is wasting our lives.

| I don't believe that we cannot have fulfilling interpersonal relationships via the internet.|

Not my argument. I've been friends with a guy in Scotland since 1995. Never so much as heard his voice.

    These relationships are every whit as real and fulfilling as relationships I could have if I went directly to where they were and interacted with them physically.

Now there - there we can disagree. Come at it from the other side - you have friends that you hang out with and interact with. You eat meals with them, watch movies with them, talk about classes with them. Consider carefully:

If you never saw them in person ever again, would your relationship be diminished?

I don't think you can honestly say that an in-person relationship does not suffer from becoming a text-based relationship. I think it can still be a strong relationship, but it becomes a different relationship.

Thus, back to the core argument:

People who focus on online relationships lose some of their ability to have an in-person relationship.

I would argue that your inability to distinguish between the two demonstrates my point. If I can experience a closer relationship off-line than I can online, while you can experience just as intense a relationship online as off, which is more likely:

A) You experience a greater depth of connection in all things than I do

B) Your ability to experience connection in person has been diminished compared to me

I can make an argument for B. Can you make an argument for A?