We are living in a digital age where we can buy and sell everything online twenty-four hours a day. Pets, clothes, computers, food and services can be bought by just one click of the mouse. Furthermore, we are connected to the internet almost all day long by using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn on our mobile phones, IPads or laptops. We present ourselves to the world and all our personal information could be read by complete strangers. But that does not scare us at all. We seem to like it to present ourselves in the most positive way to maintain relationships online and meet new people. But could online contact lead to a deeper and more serious relationship? Or do we get more individual by each message we post?
Research showed that the more frequent people post messages online, the higher the intimacy-level. On the other hand, the so called lurkers get more and more individual by just reading posts and watching pictures of others. So how could we expand our offline intimacy-level while we are posting online messages all day long? And how could we increase our online intimacy-level while we are posting no messages at all on our social network sites? Do we have to make a choice between online and offline, lurker or poster? Or could we be both?
