The Virtual Community

Rheingold's article The Virtual Community brought up a valid point that I had never thought of before. Rheingold talks about virtual communities in that they are used by some as a form of psychotherapy. He claims that many virtual community users spend hours upon hours pretending to be someone they're not which can be a way to get things off their chest or live someone else's life. Rheingold didn't go too much into detail about this as a form of psychotherapy but it made me think of the way I use Facebook. We discussed in class why some people use virtual communities and some freshmen stated that they used it before coming to IU to meet their future roommates or other people on their dorm floors. As a senior, I didn't know about Facebook until I got to IU and even then it wasn't as popular as it is now. To begin with, I was against Facebook because I didn't see the point in joining. However, over the years I have found that if I don't have anything else to do I get on Facebook and look at pictures of old friends, talk to recent friends or even rearrange my profile. It sounds kinda lame but, in a way, I use it as a form of psychotherapy. It makes me feel good to get online and communicate with friends of mine. Plus, looking at friends' pictures from our recent SB activities is always fun because you get to see where everyone went and how much fun they had. It is such a nice and relaxing (and convenient) way to share pictures and information to people that may go to a different school or live in a different state. Rheingold makes a good point that we use virtual communities this way and we may not even be aware of the ways in which we use this technology. I really hadn't ever thought of it in that way but after reading this article, it opened my eyes to a different way of thinking.
This, I also want to add, helps me appreciate and respect other people's taste and opinions of other virtual communities like Second Life. We discussed in class that people get on to talk to other friends and share problems with them. It seems odd to those of us who don't do that, but ask yourself this: is it really all that different than what I'm doing with Facebook? Yes, I've met these people in person, but some of my friends I met only once. If I meet someone at a party and they befriend me, does that count as really knowing them? For example, one guy met me at a party when I was visiting a friend at Purdue and I haven't seen him since. He has sent me a couple of messages and posts comments on my wall and on some pictures. As creepy as that sounds, we're actually pretty good 'virtual friends', just not 'personal interaction friends.' So, as I asked before, how different are Second Life and Facebook?