3 Questions...

I cannot believe that I actually have a blog. For years I have resisted many popular technological mainstreams, such as Facebook and MySpace, only to finally succumb to my first online identity for this class. And so far, I have to say, it's not half bad :)

1. I am very interested in the concept of the online identity and how it can be different from one's identity in real life. For example, one of my friends who is painfully shy loves being online - she had hundreds of friends on Facebook and spends a lot of her time on Instant Messenger, but refuses to talk to any of her peers in her classes! I have another friend who started an online relationship through Match.com and felt the relationship was going well through emails, but once she met the person, she said they didn't get along at all. I'm sure that many things can contribute to someone's online personality, such as time to think of a carefully-planned response and have the ability to actually behave the way he or she really wants to come across to someone. Which brings me to my next topic...

2. Online dating is such a big phenomenon these days. Suddenly the idea of "finding your soulmate" became potentially a lot easier - people can just create profiles and you can find your "match" (on paper) in half an hour! I wonder how this concept will change the criteria that people find to be important in a mate. If you met someone in real life who was fun and nice, but maybe lives far away from you, you might still date them. But online, you don't even have to talk to anyone who lives too far away from you - here you can decide to disregard all of these potentially nice people because they do not match up to your online criteria.

3. How does technology redefine certain words? For example, a friend is "a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard." However, a Facebook "friend" for some people may be only close friends, but a "friend" for someone else may be just a person who they met in a class or who they thought was interestingl, but have never actually met or spoken to. Thus, how do we define the concept of friendship within this technology era?