1. Online relationships can have a certain risk that a face to face relationship may or may not endure. I do think it is unethical to misrepresent yourself either in person or online. I do think individuals who communicate online are more likely to lie about their physical appearance than about themselves as an individual. As much as I feel this is still unethical the individual who lies about their physical being may perceive themselves in that manner so they don’t recognize it as lying. For example some people who have lost a significant amount of weight still have a self-perception that they are extremely overweight when they are not. Of course there are those who are predators online and they lie about everything age, sexual orientation, appearance and anything else that might keep them from showing their true self so they cannot capture their prey. For the sake of this post I am not referring to those types of individuals but rather society’s norms of online daters and those seeking a relationship.
I think deception is found in both online and face-to face relationships. Online is about physical deception the majority of the time while face-to-face deception is about the makeup of the individual. Meaning how financially secure they are, what they do for a living, and their age. Being deceitful is wrong no matter what you are misrepresenting about yourself. We should want an honest relationship built on trust, truth, and open communication. I understand this may be hard to find but if we accept the lies people tell us in the beginning they will continue to lie through the relationship. A relationship built on a foundation of lies is bound to crumble and fall apart.
Katrina
You make some really good points in your post. I completely agree with you that it’s unethical to lie online and that people who communicate online are more likely to lie about themselves. I thought of the obvious, where people lie online to make themselves sound more attractive. However, I didn’t think about how someone who is extremely self conscious may describe themselves in a more negative way than they actually are. You also made good points where you differentiated the ways people lie online vs face to face. However, I do think online people lie about the makeup of the individual just as much as in person, but with the added lies about physical traits.
ReplyDeleteHi Katrina,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that a relationship built on lies will crumble and eventually end. People are capable of deception in both online and face-to-face relationships. Unfortunately, people are more vulnerable online due to the block of the face-to-face interaction in order to determine if everything they are reading or being told is in fact true. I remember watching an episode of True Life where the girlfriend of some guy created a fake AIM screen name, and IM'd posing as another girl, and asking if he would go out with her and if he had a girlfriend. She would have never been able to do that face to face, and was able to create a fake person to spy on her boyfriend.
It makes sense not to lie repeatedly because of course they are going to be impossible to keep in the long run. Of course, should an individual not desire this, then the short term experience must be the only goal. The sad part is when one person’s intentions don’t match those of their partner then eventually the clash will lead to the degradation of the relationship. I think it is perfectly reasonable for a person to want to enter a relationship strictly for the purpose of finding out just how much they can deceive their partner. It wont work in the long run, but nevertheless people can deceive as much or as little as they like in either online or face to face interaction.
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