Throughout the years, person-to-person conversation has decreased, and chatting online, even when next to someone, has become the social norm for carrying on or beginning a conversation, especially when it is with someone new.

Meeting new people is probably the most difficult obstacle us humans truly understand due to the awkwardness of talking to someone you do not know well, deafening silence, and the potential for lacking common interests and having to do the walk of shame. Online it is easier to fake who you are to seem more appealing, especially on a dating website due to the overpowering longing to meet someone who could wind up being their soulmate. On the contrary, it could depend from person to person and from situation to situation. For example: someone could find a person they enjoy talking to online and then feel obligated to meet them in person or vice versa. Thus the internet is a way to connect with someone and decide if meeting them in person and carrying on the relationship is truly worth the risk.

After conducting a survey of twenty-three people around the school, six people stated that online is the easiest way for them to meet people, 11 stated it depends on the situation and the person and 16 stated that it is easier to meet people face-to-face regardless of the potential awkwardness. Jennifer Arena, staff writer for the North Forsyth Raider Wire, chose online as her preferable way to meet people due to “the ability to meet people with common interests, and people are scary.” She also stated that, “people have pages dedicated to things they enjoy, and you can meet multiple people because of that page. Also…the fandoms.” Grace Wood, also a staff writer, states that, “It depends because, for my cousin, he has bad social skills and has better friends online, but I think it’s easier to connect and a lesser fear of being ‘catfished’.” On the topic of meeting people in person, Marissa Dintino States, “It’s more real, and you know who you’re talking to. You’re more surrounded by people, so you get more interaction that way, as opposed to the conversations going potentially deep or personal.” Lastly, “It’s easy to stalk people online, whereas face-to-face make it more difficult to stalk someone without being caught by someone.”

Even though out society is increasing in technological-based interaction and chatrooms, people still prefer to interact face-to-face on the common reason that people cannot lie easily to someone they barely know, and they are not someone hiding behind a computer screen pretending to be someone they are not.