Online Communities

I really wasn't very excited when I discovered that I was going to have to join an internet community other than Facebook because I am not into meeting new people online. I was nervous about the increased amount of unwanted emails I thought I might find in my inbox. Since it is a requirement for this class, I went for it anyway, despite my thoughts about internet communities. I joined iVillage, an online community for women to talk about anything from parenting and pregnancy to home and garden to health and diet.

I started off on the pregnancy discussion boards in iVillage because my husband and I are ready to start having children. Within hours of posting my "I'm new" introduction on the discussion board, I already knew I was accepted into the community. I received replies from women welcoming me into the community and offering me assistance in figuring out how to take advantage of all iVillage has to offer. I didn't really expect anyone to want to build relationship with me after reading such vague information about me and my desire to start a family, but women were already asking me to keep them updated on our family-starting journey.

I notice that the iVillage boards are filled with encouragement. Agreements are celebrated! Disagreements are expressed in respectful ways. A lot of the time they are not really resolved, but rather accepted as differences of opinion. Sometimes women change their minds about issues such as abortion after reading other women's opinions, but even when they don't they are still accepted and respected in the community. There is a lot of empathy in the iVillage community for women going through hard times. I am amazed at how vulnerable other women are within this online community.

Since joining iVillage my perceptions of online communities have changed. I used to believe that face-to-face interactions are required to constitute a real community. Now I see how "virtual communities [...] allow people to transcend geographic boundaries and unite with others who share their common interests" (W&S, p.124). Our culture values inclusion and online communities "provide individuals with a means for acquiring that feeling of inclusion" (W&S, p.124). I still have concerns about online communities though. I think that it is fine for people to seek the company of like-minded people in online communities, but only so long as they are also actively involved in real world communities. Even when people agree or diagree online, it is difficult to tell if disagreements are ever really resolved or if agreements are genuine since people can type a completely different message than they truly feel. I don't see how anyone could connect only with people online and live a fulfilling life. A world void of nonverbal communication would be tragic I think.

I think that many individuals choose to join online communities because they offer more efficient means of interaction, and we all know efficiency is highly valued in our culture. People know that they can connect with others who are similar to them without having to set up a meeting time and place; they can do it on their own time in the comfort of their homes. The asynchronous nature of it all is very appealing in our individualistic culture where people are highly concerned with being able to communicate at a time and place that works best for them. I think that the popularity of online communication raises a question of whether efficiency is more important in our culture than nonverbal communication. Would we rather be able to interact online (which I think keeps us at a much more surface level of communication) or would we rather be able to use and to read all of the nonverbal cues that make interactions much more rich and meaningful? Are we so concerned with efficiency and with achieving our personal goals that we place authentic relationships with others on the backburner?