Online Communities or Mental Pictures?

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Online Communities or Mental Pictures?

It was 11:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. I sat at my computer typing and anxiously waiting for a response. “Hello how is everyone tonight?” “I am from Virginia, where are all of you from?” No one responded to anything I said. I tried again, “Does anyone want to chat?” Again, I was ignored. I felt lonely, confused, and upset. “What is wrong with me?” I thought to myself. I hated knowing that I was the one being rejected in this so-called “community.”

Are there really such things as “online communities?” Can you form friendships with the people you come across in an online community? There are many claims that there are such things as online communities. That is true if you classify a community as “a group of people having common interests” (Dictionary.com) but having a common interest did not play a significant role in the forum I worked with. Online communities can be overrated and not meet the standards for which they are intended if the people participating do not follow the proposed rules and are not there for the correct reasons. In fact, when I was in the Teen Chat room no one talked about fashion, which is the topic of the site. In the discussion forum, some of the posts were off of the subject. Some online communities may appropriately be classified as a “community”, but the teen forum that I participated in was not a virtual community. Online communities are not physical places, instead they are a state of mind; a place which exists only in the mind of the participant.

I participated in an online community in the Student Center which is just a site dedicated to teens. From this site, you can access many other sites such as: “diaries,” “teen forums,” “groups,” “tests,” etc. I accessed the teen forum section where you can choose many different topics under the four main categories. The categories are Advice and Sexuality, Entertainment, General, and Information. Under each category you can choose a specific subject of your interest such as: dating and relationships, health and fitness, sexuality, fashion, sports, music, movies, religion, and job search, along with others and be involved with it. I chose a teen forum focused on fashion because I really enjoy learning about different styles.

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