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