Discovering the Personal Story: Friendship Development through Online Communication

This study will be using qualitative methods to research the personal stories of communication and interaction present in online friendships. Key issues include: what is the role of online communication in friendship development, and how are online friendships perceived by those in relationships based solely on the internet? This study used 11 women, ages 19-22 years old, as participants. Information was gathered solely through interviews and one focus group consisting of four participants. These interviews were held in a responsive/friendship style, with specific base questions, as well as questions relevant to individual interviews. The results of this study show that the experiences with online friendships showed a wide range in degrees of intimacy, dependency, and consistency with online friends. The participants also widely varied in their perception of online communication. These findings show that although online friendships are sometimes perceived as inferior to face-to-face relationships, the benefits of communication control and media richness in online communication can allow for a rich diversity of emotional intimacy. Often the determining factor in whether or not a participant had online friends was not based on social anxiety or loneliness, as previous studies have shown, but rather on the individual’s perception of online communication