"I'm Petting the Laptop, Which Has You Inside It": Reflecting on Lived Experiences of Online Friendship
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866918069753872384 |
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| author | Yong, Seraphina Milton, Ashlee Rosenberg, Evan Suma Chancellor, Stevie Yarosh, Svetlana |
| author_facet | Yong, Seraphina Milton, Ashlee Rosenberg, Evan Suma Chancellor, Stevie Yarosh, Svetlana |
| contents | Online(-only) friendships have become increasingly common in daily lives post-COVID despite debates around their mental health benefits and equivalence to ''real'' relationships. Previous research has reflected a need to understand how online friends engage beyond individual platforms, and the lack of platform-agnostic inquiry limits our ability to fully understand the dynamics of online friendship. We employed an activity-grounded analysis of 25 interviews on lived experiences of close online friendship spanning multiple years. Our findings present unique challenges and strategies in online friendships, such as stigma from real-life circles, an ambivalent relationship with online communities, and counter-theoretical reappropriations of communication technology. This study contributes to HCI research in online communities and social interface design by refocusing prior impressions of strong vs. weak-ties in online social spaces and foregrounding time-stable interactions in design for relationship maintenance through technology. Our work also promotes critical reflection on biased perspectives towards technology-mediated practices and consideration of online friends as an invisible marginalized community. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_20055 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | "I'm Petting the Laptop, Which Has You Inside It": Reflecting on Lived Experiences of Online Friendship Yong, Seraphina Milton, Ashlee Rosenberg, Evan Suma Chancellor, Stevie Yarosh, Svetlana Human-Computer Interaction Online(-only) friendships have become increasingly common in daily lives post-COVID despite debates around their mental health benefits and equivalence to ''real'' relationships. Previous research has reflected a need to understand how online friends engage beyond individual platforms, and the lack of platform-agnostic inquiry limits our ability to fully understand the dynamics of online friendship. We employed an activity-grounded analysis of 25 interviews on lived experiences of close online friendship spanning multiple years. Our findings present unique challenges and strategies in online friendships, such as stigma from real-life circles, an ambivalent relationship with online communities, and counter-theoretical reappropriations of communication technology. This study contributes to HCI research in online communities and social interface design by refocusing prior impressions of strong vs. weak-ties in online social spaces and foregrounding time-stable interactions in design for relationship maintenance through technology. Our work also promotes critical reflection on biased perspectives towards technology-mediated practices and consideration of online friends as an invisible marginalized community. |
| title | "I'm Petting the Laptop, Which Has You Inside It": Reflecting on Lived Experiences of Online Friendship |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20055 |