Are friendships formed via social media/lj/dw, etc real and valid friendships?

[tanyad]

I started this on FB, because I'd noticed that I'd lost a "friend" both on LJ and FB. Partially wondering what I could have done or what post had been offensive enough to make someone leave, I thought of the following passage and wanted to expound here since you can't really have meaningful dialog on FB (at least IMHO

Comments

[newroticgirl]

blar, wrote a comment and LJ ate it. :( too loopy in the brain to recreate it right now. ah pain meds. I love and hate them.

[kin_thalas]

I think there is no wrong or right in there. A 'virtual' friendship can mean as a lot or less as a real life friendship, imo.

As for me, I lost a 'virtual' friend once and and it hurt me and meant the same to me as if I'd lost a real life friend.

Either I'm weird, or it's truly the same.

[littleeva]

I think it is very hard to have relationships, friendships with people online simply because when you "talk" online you can't see the other person nor hear the sound of their voice. I do think it's possible that real friendships can grow from online friendships, I mean if you have a shared interest with someone online and then you meet them and click, that can happen.

I don't think people have lost the ability to connect, there's just less time to do it. People are working sometimes at more than one job, they're in school, commuting. Maybe they have to take care of parents or children. Sometimes the computer is the only connection they have.