Should we see virtual friendships as a competitor to real friendships? Does virtual friendship which is relatively new, mean our world is not focusing on the real!
I disagree and to show you why we will have to go back into the pre-internet era.
I am sure that you would be surprised if I tell you that virtual friendship is quite old. Not many of us have heard about pen pals which was the pre-internet version of virtual friendship. Where you would connect with people who were mostly strangers by exchanging letters via postal mail. You would write a letter with a pen, put it into an envelope. Paste a postal stamp and put it in a letterbox. A painstakingly long process in today’s terms and by no means as instant and as efficient as an email. So virtual friendship is not at all new, it was here even before the internet
Now, what makes virtual friendship extremely important?
First, virtual friendship makes distance relatively and figuratively irrelevant because you can have friends not just in your school or neighbourhood but anywhere on the earth or maybe in the future on other planets. Even your current real friends can stay in touch and be friends for lives if they move to different a city or country.
Second, it is an opportunity to know new cultures, cities, countries and learn foreign languages.
And last but not the least some humans find it more comfortable to express themselves online via writing down their thoughts and feelings in emails and chats. The online medium has allowed them to connect, share and make friends as well!
Finally, I would like to close my arguments via a few myth busters
Myth 1: Virtual friends are all unreal, frauds and deceiving. But I think the truth is the same people can hurt and deceive in real life as well. We need to be alert ourselves.
Myth 2: Virtual friendship is emotionless with only text. According to me, this statement is totally incorrect because nowadays there is video calling, emojis, gifs, etc. you can send to your friends and with the growing advancement in technologies like AR, VR, Haptics, etc. one-day virtual friendship will feel like having your friends right next to you
Myth 3: Too much time screen time. Contrary to this nowadays we are mostly playing video games or watching TV so how is doing that all day with your real friends any better for your eyes?
Myth 4: Virtual world is home to cyberbullying. The truth is bullies exist everywhere in the real AND virtual world, the only difference is that in the virtual world you have an option to block or report which you won’t find in the real world
Myth 5: Lost track of time with virtual friendship. So, time management is a skill that we all need to learn. We need to manage our time between leisure, work and learning. Be it the real or virtual world. Because even in the real world we can lose track of time while playing with our friends.
With this, I conclude. Thank you
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