> Why is it that when someone with whom you speak and correspond via the net is absent for a period of time, it is noticed so quickly? It’s definitely reciprocal: I’m to the point where I feel better if I give close internet friends a heads up about planned absences, so they don’t wonder about me. In real life, I have friends with whom I don’t speak for months at a time, and this never causes a qualm.
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> What is it about this type of communication (e.g. online) that fosters this? I really don’t believe the argument that the net creates a “false” sense of intimacy or friendship: the person about who I was worried is someone I consider a good friend, and I don’t regret what I did. I feel a little sheepish, but I would have felt worse if I’d ignored the fact they hadn’t answered me, and it had turned out something was wrong.
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> So, experienced online communicators: what’s the etiquette (“netiquette”?) for this sort of situation? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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> te "worrywart" ach


Not a false sense of intimacy, but a false sense of proximity.

The Internet, to most people (I'm guessing), feels like a real "place," this little (or not-so-little) world behind the monitor. And one of the many odd features of this world is that lots of your friends can be right there with you, wherever they're located physically. It's always a little weird to me, when I go back and forth from college, to realize that my ability to communicate with my online friends is unaltered by my 600-mile journey.

If a friend was in the same room as you, you would certainly feel that something was wrong if she failed to reply to you. I think the sense of proximity in online contact leads to the same feeling-- but with the complication that you're not, in fact, anywhere near your friends, and you have no way of knowing what is going on with them.

I experience this most often when IMing somebody. I will become unnecessarily concerned if they don't reply right away to something I've said. The fact that I'm in immediate contact with them, but at the same time unable to see them and know what else they're doing, leads me to assume that talking to me is the only thing occupying their time. And something of the same sort extends to email.

Make sense? I'm just excited that I got to use the word 'proximity' a couple of times... it's been a while.

Lire"words with 'x's rule"lyn