Are Your Online Friends REAL Friends?

More people made friends online than ever before due to Covid-19. Are virtual friends better or worse than IRL friends? Is there a difference?

Meet The Team!
Animation by Charlotte Lawson
Written by Michael Sago

Sources:

[chl_ca]

"Which is better?"
Me: Having friends at all...

[wloxya]

I feel like I can be more honest with online friends. Like talking about my mental health problems which I don’t do irl really.

[chrisafix]

with online friends, you can be whoever you want without the awkwardness!

[barackobama]

Neither is better because there is no difference. A friend is a friend, and the argument that you can’t trust people online is a bad argument because you can’t trust people irl either

[iwilldielater]

Made a ton of online friends while in quarantine, feels good

[illogikalli]

I haven't clicked so fast then I ever have, but ngl i like online friends since my irl friends are also online

[mothercereal]

I have both and it doesn't really matter whether it's online or irl, it's easier to form close online relationships because there's a huge array of people who like similar things as me and I can hug my irl friends. Both have benefits.

[brendanrisney]

Friends I've made online have sculpted my entire future in ways that IRL friends haven't yet. Your point about being able to find like-minded people online easier is extremely true. While I value my IRL friends like diamonds, I do the same for online friends, too.

[nevhite]

"Cardboard friends count to!"

See mum, I told you I have friends.

[MultifandomYoutube]

friends are people who care about you. Whether you met them IRL or online. It’s about trust :)

[Xnxnxnxn]

discord vs school. That is how i see it

[donaldocordova]

Insert cliché “I’m an introvert/have no friends” joke here.

[jasperhart]

I have more online friends than IRL. It's difficult to make them IRL because they don't understand most things I talk about or say. But having both types of friends is good for you.

[FlowerAngelRave]

To be honest, I only have online friends, and have since even before this whole word situation. Real life interactions are just a lot harder for me and while it might not seem ideal for most people, it’s definitely better than nothing for me and others like me. And I’m very grateful for the online friends I do have.

[girlieh]

Honestly, the only reason I *have* irl friends is because online friends gave me a confindence boost

[thedukeofweasels]

I was lucky that all my friendships are online already so quarantine didn't change my life much. My online friends are people I choose to be with because our personalities mesh well and we have things in common that make it an enjoyable experience to be with them people that are like family to me. I think it's way more meaningful then forming an IRL friendship that ends up being based on nothing but proximity and convenience like when you meet people at work or school and just keep hanging out with them because they're there.

[crawled]

I used to go online on public discord servers and talk to random people on there to make friends
The thing that disturbs me about this is that you can hide the majority of who you really are and pretend to be someone else
And the people i knew online werent at all who i thought they were, it turns out that they werent good people to be around
It feels like if you meet someone online, you dont usually know them
Like know know them
I used to think every person on there is a good person while everyone in real life is the opposite
However this was false as the more i got to know people online, the more their facade seems to fall apart
And now i have decided to leave alltogether
The thought of just not knowing the name of someone you know or anything else except the slight things they say just irks me

[Matin_T]

one of the biggest issues of having online friends is that "block" button which is getting more and more common these days.
just imagine you find a good, likeminded person and then just because of a simple argument, they use that block button and everything is finished.
there is actually no other way to get in touch with them after that and this is one of the things i've seen regularly happening in our daily, real lives where friends reconcile with each other after a few months which i highly doubt something similar can happen in online friendships. even if you want to unblock the guy and come back, maybe you encounter with their deleted account after a few weeks, months or even years. (but that's rarely gonna happen in real life cos the guy/gal is not gonna die after you break up with them unless they commit a suicide which is again very rare to happen).
also keep in mind that in real life, we have arguements, sometimes fights or quarrels and these things are totally normal according to psychological facts due to having different opinions and ideas and totally you can't find two people having exactly the same appearance, personality, beliefs, ideas and etc... in the world.
these kind of situations are usually handled by clicking on a block button but in real life, for clicking the block button of someone, you need to go over doing some paperwork, difficulties, getting out of the closet of being an anonymous user and reveal your real identity and being responsible for and also committed to every decision you make/every action you do as a real human being and so on... it's completely different to an online chat or lifestyle where you can easily change your account, delete it, create multiple accounts and hide your real self behind a mask.

another problem is not being real.
this is called internet.
not all the things you see on the internet are real such as the profile pic of people or probably the way they pretend to be.
everyone's trying to sound cool in online chats but i highly doubt it's close to reality if you meet them face to face.
it's easy to create a video of yourself, claiming that everything sounds beautiful and fine within your life while we haven't seen the other side of the story yet. you get what i mean.
so, obviously it will have a negative impact on children and teenagers' lives while they assume everything they see online is close to reality and everything seems as shiny and splendid as they look like which is not true based on so many reports from other victims :)
you order product A and then you receive product B in front of your house. lol. again, you get what i mean.

another problem is language.
yes, the difference of the languages which makes us use google translate or other websites in this category more than ever. of course, they feel good at first glance but what about the real life?
you reply with delays. it feels good of course to think more and write better or cool idioms or sentences but what about a simple voice chat? what about hearing the voice of the person you like but either both of you or one of you can't reach the level of the other one?
communication is not all about chatting with your friends behind glossing screens. you meet your school friends tomorrow at school after chatting with them for hours (i guess). you finally want to meet the person you like and try to have a more friendly, close relationship with him/her. (of course you don't want it to be just a simple online chat. understandable 😉).
if you can't understand each other in real life as cool as your online chats which usually take hours to get to a specific point/end, then i assure you it's not gonna end up the way you liked.

these are only three of the main reasons that why it's better to keep everything real including our relationships which are one of the most important aspects of our lives. nowadays, we all know that social media apps play a huge role in youth suicidal behavior.
so, all the pieces of the puzzle seem to fall into place when trying to gather more useful information to make the final decision.

personally, i prefer going out and finding real people and talking to them without bragging rather than wasting my precious time saying "hello" to tens of hundreds of strange people whom i don't have the slightest idea where they're from, how old they really are, what they really do in real life and other questions that we usually ask them but we are always skeptic if they're honest with us.
most of these things can be easily solved by finding real people in real life. not online people.

PS: let's not forget frauds and scammers waiting in an ambush!

[dragonfury]

As someone who has always had online friends and has only very briefly had like 2 irl friends, i’d say that online friends are better. Its a lot easier to find nice people online, because you can find friends from all over the world instead of in a very small area around your house. Also about the “con” of not having tone of voice or facial expressions in text, ive kinda learned how to tell stuff like that from text just by the words that people use, even for people i just met

[Healion]

I prefer online friendships because they allow me to basically be more careful. When you're just speaking in messages or talking through a mic (I don't do video calls), it's easier to think about what you'll do & how you could probably avoid showing anything that the person might not like
And as someone who doesn't really try to make myself presentable, that's perfect for me