Trusting and Making Online Chat Room Friends

Having friends is incredibly important to your health; I mean humans are social creatures. A recent study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science showed that those who spend more time alone have a greater risk of dying. Researchers from Harvard Medical School say that healthy relationships are “every bit as powerful as adequate sleep, a good diet, and not smoking.” But in today’s digital age, do internet friends count as real friends?

Recent research from Stanford University found that when people connect in online communities, they initially trust strangers but that confidence erodes over time. The looked at a great website, Couch surfing and found that rating systems initially create trust between strangers but once people have a lot of reviews; it’s harder to build stronger social ties.

And this makes some sense. I mean if you’re about to sleep on a stranger’s couch you want to know that other people had a good experience there. (And that they aren’t going to kill you or anything) But on the other hand, it could make experiences and relationships more predictable. There’s undoubtedly a lot of bias against having internet friends. My mother tells me that they’re not real. Like WHAT!? Come on. Other people think this too, and one NYT article claimed that shared experience is the basis of real friendships. But science shows that sharing personal information creates strong social ties. Researchers call this self-disclosure.

When you share something about yourself, it feels good, and some studies show it might make people like you more. But it also makes you like the person you told your secret to more. Research seems to be up in the air about trust between internet buddies. Some studies show that people share more intimate details with their friends online than in face to face. It’s kind of a way to overcompensate for the lack of physical intimacy. But other studies show the opposite. One study published in the Public Library of Science compared the effects on happiness of real life friends and online friends. The study found that on-line friends have zero or negative correlations with subjective well-being. But to be fair, the average age of that study was 45. I think the youths have a very different way of interacting on Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Online Chat Rooms, whatever than older adults.

But after all, a friendship is personal. One study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior found that social networks provide just another way to connect with people and that this connectedness associates with lower depression and anxiety and greater life satisfaction. And those internet friends can turn into in real life friends; one study showed that 30% of people will meet up with their online pals. Anecdotally, I have a great community of internet friends, some of whom I’ve met in real life and have become my best friends. Friends? Let us know.