Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Ever get told your Internet friends aren’t real? Yeah, me too. I think otherwise, but
let’s take a look at what the science has to say.
Já te disseram que os teus amigos da Internet não são reais? Sim, a mim
também. Penso o contrário, mas vamos ver o que a ciência tem a dizer.
Having friends is incredibly important for your health, I mean, humans are social
creatures. A recent study, published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological
Science, shows that those who spend more time alone have a greater risk of dying.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School say that strong relationships are every bit as
powerful as adequate sleep, a good diet and not smoking.
Recent research from Stanford University found that when people connect in online
communities they initially trust strangers, but that trust erodes over time. They looked
at a popular website, CouchSurfing, 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 have had a good experience and that
person isn’t going to kill you or anything, but on the other hand it could make
experiences and relationships more predictable.
I feel like there’s a lot of bias against having Internet friends. I mean, my own mother
tells me that they’re not real, like, what? No, come on.
Other people think this too. One New York Times article claimed that shared
experience is the basis of good 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.
Outras pessoas também pensam assim. Um artigo do New York Times afirmava
que a experiência partilhada é a base de boas amizades, mas a ciência mostra
que partilhar informações pessoais cria fortes laços sociais. Os investigadores
chamam a isto "auto-divulgação". Quando partilhas algo sobre ti, é bom, e
alguns estudos mostram que pode fazer com que as pessoas gostem mais de ti,
mas também te faz gostar da pessoa que contaste o teu segredo para mais.
And research seems to be up in the air about trust between Internet buddies. Some
studies show that people actually 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 online friends have zero or negative correlations with
subjective well-being. But, to be fair, the average age of that study was 45. I think that
the youths have a very different way of interacting with friends on Facebook, Reddit,
Tumblr, whatever, than older adults do.
One study showed that 30% of people will meet up with their online pals. Anecdotally,
I have a great community of Internet friends (Hi San!), some of whom I’ve met IRL and
they’ve become some of my best friends.
Um estudo mostrou que 30% das pessoas vão encontrar-se com os seus amigos
online. Curiosamente, tenho uma grande comunidade de amigos da Internet (Hi
San!), alguns dos quais conheci a IRL e tornaram-se alguns dos meus melhores
amigos.