Connecting: how we form social bonds and communities in the Internet age

Abstract

From the Publisher: Explores how we come to feel connected to those we have never met face-to-face. BACKCOVER: 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. Author Biography: Mary Chayko is Assistant Professor and Chair of Sociology at the College of St. Elizabeth.