"I lacked a deeper connection": Can online friends be the answer to loneliness?

I was raised not to talk to strangers. Strangers, I was taught in my childhood, are people we have never met before, so we don't know them. As a child, I would have been horrified to know that, now in my thirties, I frequently engage in complete hazards without giving it much thought. I'm not just talking about the store staff who make the mistake of asking me how my day is going, only to receive a very honest and over-shared response. I mean the way social media apps have evolved to elicit an illicit reaction or response, how my thumb reflexively taps twice on a metronome as I scroll, setting an iambic beat to the red hearts pulsing before my eyes . I'm not the only one who counts people I've interacted with online as my friends, but how do those friendships compare to those we have in person?

There is a certain ease in making connections online that cannot be replicated offline and it is this ease that appeals to my time-poor and emotionally reserved side. Follow? Follow us, job done! While I had a large group of friends in high school, I wouldn't say I'm now part of anything resembling Taylor Swift's #squadgoals, a term often used to describe her large but intimate circle of friends. I also wouldn't know how to go about getting a team. According to Dr. Marisa G Franco, psychologist, friendship expert and author of Platonic, making friends as an adult is more complicated than when we were children. "Children in school have what sociologists believe are the essential ingredients for friendship to occur organically, namely repeated unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability. As adults, we don't have not really environments with these elements, because at work we may be more reserved and less vulnerable, even if we see each other every day."

As As an introvert, I appreciate the ability to connect with like-minded people without the pressure of social gatherings, but there's always the risk that online connections can be superficial, lacking the authenticity that comes with the being vulnerable and unsupervised. Author and host Emma Gannon states in her book Disconnected: How to Stay Human in an Online World: "Social media projection allows us to hide the truth on our true selves and inhibits so the real connection." I can't be the only one who typed "hahaha" or the laughing crying emoji into a conversation without even a flicker of a smile, but I also faked the laugh of a bad joke in person because sometimes it's the polite thing to do. Whether in business or behind a screen, a deeper connection is formed when a joke lands and laughter breaks out, deep and real.

Being online makes it easier without no doubt the inauthenticity (just looking at the catfish), but sometimes the distance that is built into our online interactions gives people the courage to express themselves more freely and honestly. As therapist and author Emma Reed Turrell says, "You have the ability to present yourself online as yourself, so there's real permission for online friendships to automatically select the groups you want to follow and to be there the way you want. Be there." I've curated my social media feed so it's filled with content that reflects my values ​​and interests. Online, I'm aware of political views, family values, sense of humor , musical tastes, etc. of a person, and on that basis I can gauge how much in common that person and I may share.

For the same There are also complicated dynamics when we interact with people online that fall into the territory of parasocial relationships, a term coined by sociologists in the 1950s to describe the phenomenon where a person feels close to a celebrity or "a public figure. There is a danger that intimate content could engender a feeling of affinity that is not reciprocated. In other words, you can follow someone who posts photos of their house, their holidays, his moments of triumph and sorrow, and begins r to sympathize with him. They may refer to their followers as "friends", evoking feelings of familiarity and affection. Meanwhile, that person you love isn't following you and doesn't even know you exist.

But what about reciprocal relationships? I ask my online friend Kat, who lives in Utah, if she thinks we'd still get along if we met in person. We both agree to do it. We have a lot in common, have had many FaceTimes and have been open and honest with each other. Although there is some level of effort to maintain any friendship, as Kat says, "It's easier online. I'm already online a...