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Are
Virtual Social Relationships independent from Reality?
Yung-Chu
Yeh
Jar-Der
Luo
Graduate
School of Social Informatics, Yuan-Ze University
Abstract
Following the thought of Wellman, we are trying to
examine how social relationships within the cyber-community differ from
those in the real world. For general internet users, we are also
interested in whether their behavior of making friends on the internet is
similar to that when off-line? In our findings, it would appear
that a pair of friends has the same types of interactions when on the
internet as those demonstrated in the real world. We also find that behind
an on-line intimate tie with high interaction frequency, there exists a
high probability of finding a person with a high degree of centrality
within friendship networks in the real world. Our findings do not deny the
possibility that there is a large group of "disembodied"
internet users. But for an average user, life in cyberspace is not in
large contrast to their real daily life.
Keywords：Social Networks, Cyberspace, Internet Relations, Cyber-Community.
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