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The ideas of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between what is considered "on-line" and Cotton Tree Best Western Utah what is considered "off-line" has become a subject of study in the field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" is conventionally seen as the distinction between Cotton Tree Best Western Utah computer-mediated communication Cotton Tree Best Western Utah and face-to-face communication (e.g. face time), Cotton Tree Best Western Utah respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, and Cotton Tree Best Western Utah "off-line" is reality (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater states that Cotton Tree Best Western Utah this distinction is "obviously Cotton Tree Best Western Utah far too simple". Cotton Tree Best Western Utah To support his argument that the distinctions in relationships are more complex than a Cotton Tree Best Western Utah simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people Cotton Tree Best Western Utah draw no distinction between an Cotton Tree Best Western Utah "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" relationship, such as being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" experience in some circumstances, and that the Cotton Tree Best Western Utah blurring of the distinctions between the uses of various technologies (such as PDA and mobile telephone, television Cotton Tree Best Western Utah and Internet, and telephone and Cotton Tree Best Western Utah voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to use the term 'on-line' meaningfully Cotton Tree Best Western Utah in the sense that was employed by the first generation Cotton Tree Best Western Utah of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there Cotton Tree Best Western Utah are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between "on-line" and "off-line", with a "general tendency to Cotton Tree Best Western Utah assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction", stressing, Cotton Tree Best Western Utah however, that this does not mean Cotton Tree Best Western Utah that on-line relationships are being reduced to pre-existing off-line Cotton Tree Best Western Utah relationships. He Cotton Tree Best Western Utah conjectures that greater legal status may be assigned to on-line relationships (pointing out that contractual relationships, such Cotton Tree Best Western Utah as business transactions, on-line Cotton Tree Best Western Utah are already seen as just Cotton Tree Best Western Utah as "real" as Cotton Tree Best Western Utah their off-line counterparts), although Cotton Tree Best Western Utah he states it to be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. He also conjectures that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may be seen by people as "rather quaint and not Cotton Tree Best Western Utah quite comprehensible" within 10 years
The distinction where "on-line" is seen as virtuality and "off-line" as reality is Cotton Tree Best Western Utah sometimes inverted, with "on-line" concepts being used to define and to Cotton Tree Best Western Utah explain "off-line" activities, Cotton Tree Best Western Utah rather than (as Cotton Tree Best Western Utah per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with its desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) Cotton Tree Best Western Utah the other way Cotton Tree Best Western Utah around. Several cartoons by The New Yorker have satirized this. One includes Saint Cotton Tree Best Western Utah Peter asking for a user name and Cotton Tree Best Western Utah a password before admitting a man into Heaven. Another illustrates Cotton Tree Best Western Utah "the off-line store" where "All items are actual size!", where Cotton Tree Best Western Utah shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay Cotton Tree Best Western Utah for it!", and where Cotton Tree Best Western Utah "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!". |
