The condition of not being willing and/or able to form relationships with people you met online has a name: cyberasociality, as coined by researchers at Cornell and the University of North Carolina. It’s counterpart — the openness towards or even preference for internet friends — is called cybersociality (no “a”).
Cyberasocial people, as defined by the group, don’t have a problem maintaing old friendships on Twitter and Facebook, or using social networks to communicate with people they already know. It’s in making new connections that they faltered.
According to Wired UK, the researchers couldn’t find any factors that correlating to the mindset:
Despite their best efforts, the sociologists behind the study could not find many, if any, patterns or correlations to the behaviour of a cyberasocialist. Gender made no difference and, surprisingly, introverts and extroverts were neither more or less likely to be cyberasocial. Additionally, cyberasocials appear to have an equal amount of friends online as they do offline.
So… why so cyberasocial, ANIMAL readers? I feel like we aren’t hanging out enough.
