If you had to choose between your real life and internet life, which would you choose? Specifically, if you were given the option of living on a deserted island somewhere and you could either bring the people you're close to in RL or you could bring an internet connection and a computer (assuming this was all feasible), what would you choose? In other words: someone you see in person every couple of months but keep in contact w/ over the internet is an internet friend, and only available in the second option. Someone you see every few days regardless of whether or not you have internet access is a real life friend, and available in the first option only. There can be no crossover.
To put it a different way: choose between a wide array of friends, with no physical contact, or a very small group of friends.
So which would you choose and why?
This is a tricky one, but I have to answer Real Life because that'd include my kids, and ultimately I'd choose them first over anyone or anything else. But if I didn't have kids? Honestly, I might actually choose to go with my internet friends. All of you pretty much count as internet friends. My real life friends I often met over the internet originally, or whatever. Even with my family, I tend to talk to them or "see" them more often online than I do in person, most of them don't live nearby and such. So I tend to think at this point that more of my social life and more of my ties are actually to long distance, internet-primary friendships than in-person friendships.
I don't know if that's a sad thing about me, or just a wonderful thing about the internet. I mean, it's not as if my cousins are "internet friends", for instance, but I still keep in contact with them over the internet primarily, with of course some phone contact and the occasional in-person visit. Real-life in-person friendships tend to change anyways, as people move away, go to school, have kids, get married, etc. My bestest-friend
(No, I don't know why I'm thinking about these random scenarios, neither is exactly likely to happen anytime soon. I guess this one sprung from the one posted in the community, and that one, well, it's not my fault it was posted. :)