How do we become connected to people we have never met in person? From celebrities to faraway relatives, from favorite writers to thinkers to people we meet on-line, we form a host of subtle, invisible, but very real social connections with distant others. In Connecting, Mary Chayko investigates how physically separated people manage to create a sense of connectedness—a ‘meeting of the minds’—and feel undeniably, if unexpectedly, bonded. Through dozens of personal accounts, the book considers the social ‘fallout’ of connecting with absent others—the benefits and hazards—on our societies, communities, relationships, and individual selves. The result is a comprehensive yet intimate look at social bonding as it is rarely recorded: an examination of the bonds and communities we form across great distances, and even across time, in the age of the Internet.
Tabella dei contenuti
Preface
1. A Meeting of the Minds
2. From Cave Paintings to Chat Rooms: The Sociomental Foundation of Connectedness
3. Making the Connection . . . Across Time, Space, and Cyberspace
4. Till Death Do We Disconnect? Keeping Connections Alive
5. How Real Does It Get? Properties of Sociomental Bonds
6. The Social ‘Fallout’ of Connecting at a Distance
Appendix 1. Investigating the Sociomental: The Face-to-Face Interview Methodology
Appendix 2. Cyberspace Connecting: The Online Survey
Methodology
Notes
References
Index
Circa l’autore
Mary Chayko is Assistant Professor and Chair of Sociology at the College of St. Elizabeth.
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