Online Fan Clubs: Group mechanics, emotional addiction, and separation anxiety

Online Fan Clubs: Group mechanics, emotional addiction, and separation anxiety Kathleen Johnson 10/14/03 Online communication strips emotional cues from conversation: tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language amongst others. This creates anonymity which hastens intimacy. People become bonded in mailing lists. The regular contact creates a sense of a relationship. Real time chats increase the rate of information exchange and the software architecture allows for transposing the event into a book form to be read and digested at a later time. The virtual neighborhood Virtual contact promotes support, encouragement, and sharing thus overcomes isolation. The Group becomes the neighborhood, a community, the coffee shop, the Saturday night drag down main street to