To what extent do your online life and online friendships interfere with your real life?

I’m with you. I get really emotionally wrapped up in my online friendships. The people that I form relationships with online are just as meaningful to me as those that I know face to face, and I think the way that we communicate over the internet tends to amplify that. It’s easy to get sucked in. I do get really involved, which is usually harmless, but there have been times where it has been detrimental to my face to face relationships.
Anyhow, I’m positive that you are not the only one to have felt this way.

Not at all now but a few years ago when I first discovered and joined wis.dm, my online time had become an obsession to the point of most of my conversations being about my wis.dm interactions. It interfered with a new relationship I eventually started, the man told me it was a problem for him but I kept on spending hours at a time on it. That relationship busted, maybe not solely due to being online but I’m sure it was a major contributor and gave the man no sense of security since I had several online “crushes”- blah blah.

Since that time, I’ve been very tight with myself as to how much (how little) I let myself connect with personalities anymore. One particular jelly who knew me from wis.dm even said they were surprised to learn my identity here as I seemed so very different from before. It’s kind of sad not to indulge as I once did with strangers but my personality proved to me that I need reigning in so as not to become a problem for other people’s relationships or a threat to my own.

Those emotional online affairs we all muddle over… yeah, I know all sides of them.

Zero. I like spending time here, but, it doesn’t interfere with me doing what needs to be done or
engaging in my ‘real’ life.

Some days I might spend more time, when I am not working or otherwise busy.

I am single, live alone in a rather secluded rural setting and am at home quite a bit between working and other errands. Been laying low the last 6 months conserving gas and resources, so Fluther is a fun outlet, but, it is not my life. lol

My husbands hates to find me on the computer talking on fluther or facebook. Absolutely hates it. I think he is right that I have plenty of time during the day, I don’t need to do it when he is home. It’s hard for me to find the same kind of interaction and conversation here where I live as I do on fluther. People willing to talk about anything, no judgment, not worry about offending someone. However, if I were working full time, for sure my mind would be otherwised occupied, and I guess it would be more productive.

Anything online is a matter of convenience and so are the “friendships” and I avoid them like the plague.

I have online buddies. Allie being the best since she just sent me a set of these monkey key-chain things.

I try to take the weekends off from the internet. I check it but I don’t really care.

I sometimes get sucked into this site for an hour or two when I have other work I should be doing, but it has never stopped me from doing stuff with other people.

Just for clarification, I’m not just talking about Fluther but the whole panoply of social networking sites.

As long as no one takes my absence from the computer personally, then no worries.

Also, reading the other responses, I want to add that it isn’t necessarily the time that I spend on social networking sites or online that has interfered with my face to face relationships. It’s my involvement in the online relationships, themselves. Just to clarify.

Fluther is the only social networking site I participate in. I closed my facebook account about 3 months ago, I only used it to share pictures with far away friends, and found the chit chat to be shallow and boring, not to mention letting go of a few friends that no longer served me. Fluther is much more gratifying than FB, for intelligent and interactive sharing.

I just sent off to have my passport renewed so I can fly out of the country in a months time to meet a friend I met on omegle about a year ago, so I guess you could say the internet interfears with my real life quite a bit.

I don’t really distinguish the two that much, after all, why should I have an online life and a real life, but not a phone life, mail life or pager life, it’s just a tool really, and just as real as a phone call.

I’m not big on social networks really, I have fluther, youtube, and a couple of other sites, but for the most part, I’m there for something specific other than friendship.

I love the people here, but, I don’t get emotionally involved. There is one jelly, though, whom I care a great deal for (@tinyfaery). We’ve bonded, and I truly do lurve the girl. Her and her wife will be coming to visit my g/f and I in 4 weeks.

There are a few jellies whom I’d love to meet in the flesh, though.

I have met several people from here and another site in the flesh and that has enriched my life. Last week I met an English friend from another site when we both happened to be in San Francisco! It was fun.

I did have a problem with another website once. I was spending a lot of time on a forum for people dealing with divorce/separation. A lot of them where there because their partner was unfaithful. After reading what these people would write about (infidelity, falling out of love, suspicions about cheating, and more), I’d end up questions things with my marriage and my husband would get really upset about it (especially since I never had a reason to question anything). It got to a point where he finally pointed out that every time I was trying to help those other people, it would cause me to feel insecure about our relationship. Once he did that, I realized I needed to take a break from that stuff because it was going to cause a major problem in my marriage if I didn’t (all because it was making me insecure).

None at all. As far as facebook, I haven’t run into any drama on there.

I suppose I consider the online experience an enrichment of my real life. I am becoming far too addicted to Fluther (in that I’m spending too much time here), but neither Fluther nor any social site takes precedence or priority over my real life.

I do feel a real relationship that I had was effectively destroyed by online experiences. The smart person would argue that it was ripe for destruction anyway, and the social media were simply tools for the execution. But, I can certanly see where there is danger afoot.

I do often wish I could have as varied/selective/wide-ranging interactions on a daily basis as I do through Fluther.

So being honest, I kind of disbelieve the notion that the nature of online relationships (friend, acquaintances, wannabe-lovers) are any different than face-to-face relationships. Neffy was saying that the relationships themselves were the problem, but I think the problem is the very addictive nature of the medium. How easy is it to spend hours and hours online? Very easy, right?

I guess I just don’t get it. How could the investment in an online relationship be in any way detrimental to your other relationships – at least, any more so than any other relationship that you’re spending a lot of time on?

Part of success in life is about “moderation in all things”, I think. If we’re spending too much time in online relationships, to the detriment of face-to-face relationships, than that’s an effect of time management, caused by the ease-of-use and addictiveness of the medium.

Just my opinion. I’m probably wrong :)

[mod says] This is our Question of the Day!

In no way whatsoever, I mean, there’s no comparison.
Virtual world is always going to come a poor second to real life & that’s just how it should be.

@ucme Well, I dont agree with that at all :) I’ve found there’s a certain exposure – a lack of barrier to emotional intimacy – in online relationships. People are better able to be themselves and let you see inside their (carefully guarded) souls, more so than in face-to-face relationships where we’re more accustomed to being careful. And it’s that emotional intimacy that can make an online relationship very special and very rewarding.

@Neurotic_David I was of course speaking on a personal level, therefore an accurate one.
Your view may well differ, I won’t disagree with it because it’s none of my business.

@ucme Ah, it wasn’t clear to me you meant that on a personal level. :)

@Neurotic_David I answered as the question asked, not an unusual step but there you go ;¬}

I might start to get concerned if I had asked four ‘Questions of the Day’ on Fluther :-) but I mostly keep my online and real lives quite separate. There is a lot of overlap with Facebook and I don’t feel comfortable with that so I don’t use FB much.

Fluther’s the only social networking site I use- I rarely go on FB these days, and if I do, it’s just to email people I need to contact for this or that reason. I’m also on vacation, so the minute the school bell rings in September, my Fluther time will be considerably reduced. I won’t be able to choose- my life will be sucked into work.

I live in a very small town, so the people I know are the people I work with, and I don’t work in a friendly or safe place, which means I have to seriously be on guard all the time- inside and outside work. I can’t flip off cars, that might be a parent. I can’t talk any way I want in public, there might be a student or coworker there ready to decontextualize, twist and spread what they think they saw. I can’t let go and have a beer because I can’t afford to lose any inhibitions and have to watch every single thing I say. 5 years like this has really gotten to me and who I am—it became harder and harder to talk to my friends in other states because we lost our common ground. So my “real life” is actually what’s interfering with who I am. It’s not so much my role as a teacher, no, but the type of tense community I live in. And I don’t say this in a ‘poor me’ way- it’s what it is, just the fact of the matter.

Sooo… right now, my online life is where I’m really able to discover new things from what others say, learn new ways of interacting with people, understand people better (that I didn’t understand before). I had become really withdrawn due to the constant self-monitoring, and here in Fluther, I can let myself be me, even if I’m still a bit shy! I’m able to interact with like-minds (or not :D) with no language barriers, with intellect, and really feel like I can express myself and own what I say. It’s hard to explain, but people take the ownership of their words for granted… when you lose ownership of what you say, any opportunity to own it becomes precious. No, my online life and friendships are not interfering with my “real life,” but completely enhancing my real life.

My personal facebook is for longtime friends and a few people from wis.dm and fluther I feel have become friends so online there isn’t ever an intrusion or interference with my “real” life because I view those people as my “real” life. My fiancee understands most of my friends are out of state, have years long ties and we continue to meet up and create new memories. One of my biggest joys has been introducing new friends to established ones and seeing our circle grow and share time together, that’s the upside of my online experiences.

@flutherother Just to justify myself, it’s not that I spend so much time asking questions here; it’s that I wait ‘til I have a really good one to ask any. Or at least, that is my intent.

No conflict.

@janbb Well it seems to work, I think you have more ‘Good Questions ‘than anyone else. I wasn’t being serious, I had put a smiley face in my previous post :-)

Like @perspicacious said. There’s no conflict. I reply to what other say and I like to think of them as friends whom I never met and could use some words [even if they don’t want to listen ^^

But I prefer real life interactions because I feel a lot better after spending two hours discussing things then just writing about them.

@flutherother I knew you were kidding; not quite sure why I felt a little defensive. :-)

What real life?

Lots of people have this issues, it seems. To me, the solution isn’t to treat the two lives as separate. As I’ve told @Jude before (the two of you share, I believe, some concerns re: this particular problem), internet people aren’t phantoms to me, being on social sites isn’t ‘taking away time from my other life’ – my life online and my life offline is still one life. I don’t interact with people less due to the Internet, I interact with them more.

Our family is fairly new to social networking and the internet. We’ve had internet in our home for a little more than 3 years now. When I found Fluther over 2½ years ago, it completely change my morning routine.

When I woke up in the morning before I found Fluther I would send the kids to school and then begin my morning ritual of kickboxing aerobics and toning exercises. Now that I’ve found Fluther, it’s the first thing I check in the morning. That and Facebook. This takes the place of my morning exercise routine now. I’ve gained 20 lbs since I’ve been involved in social networking and it’s made me miserable. The friendships I’ve made have not made me miserable. I need to find a balance, but it’s been very hard for me to do that.

I don’t know if online life really gets in the way of social interaction with me, but don’t get me wrong; I have no social life.
I tend to avoid my friends for no particular reason. It’s not very healthy I’m sure, and I don’t even know why I do it. There is one friend I consistently make an effort to hang out with. There is one that I look forward to hanging out with, but avoid half of the time anyway. I do spend a lot of time online, but I don’t think it’s the reason I don’t make an effort to spend time with friends. It’s more of what I do because I don’t feel like hanging out with people.

There have been a few occasions in which I did decide to stay home and internet for the sole purpose of internetting instead of hanging out with people. Once some internet folks and I were celebrating a favourite musician’s birthday and all watched a documentary they did at the same time and kind of obnoxiously liveblogged it, and I turned down my friends’ invite to hang out because I wanted to do that instead. But usually I just don’t want to hang out with them and end up online for lack of anything else to do.