Abstract
The internet provides us with a multitude of ways of interacting with one another. In discussions about how technological innovations impact and shape our interpersonal interactions, there is a tendency to assume that encountering people online is essentially different to encountering people offline. Yet, individuals report feeling a sense of togetherness with one another online that echoes offline descriptions. I consider how we can understand people’s experiences of being together with others online, at least in certain instances, as arising out of their feeling together as a we. Using Walther’s phenomenological framework of communality, I explore whether the following might take place online: (i) habitual communal experiences and (ii) actual we-experiences. While neither of these sketches amount to a full account of how we find ourselves with others online, I suggest that they reveal how insights from the phenomenology of sociality can be used to deepen our understanding of online communality. What is more, I suggest that the strength of this approach is that in some cases it allows us to circumvent tricky questions about embodiment online and, in others, prompts us to ask to what extent a fully-embodied interaction is really required for we-experiences.
Highlights
The internet provides us with a multitude of ways of interacting with one another: via Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Tinder, Reddit, email, comment sections, in multi-player games and so on
I will suggest that Gerda Walther’s framework of communal experiences can be used to illuminate how it is we find ourselves with others online, how we can experience an affective sense of togetherness when we are not together in physical space
By providing an account of communal experiences that can be actual, habitual, personal and objectual, I suggest that Walther provides us with a flexible framework for understanding sociality that can account for how we find ourselves feeling a sense of togetherness with others online
Summary
The internet provides us with a multitude of ways of interacting with one another: via Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Tinder, Reddit, email, comment sections, in multi-player games and so on. Whether optimistic or pessimistic about the nature of online sociality, there has been a tendency to assume that encountering people online is essentially different to encountering people offline This assumption has a certain common-sense appeal as we tend to think of offline sociality in terms of direct face-to-face interaction and online sociality as mediated through devices. (i) find ourselves feeling a habitual sense of togetherness with others online (online habitual objectual communal-experiences and online habitual personal communal-experiences); and (ii) experience actual we-experiences with others online (online actual weexperiences) While these sketches do not amount to a full account of how we find ourselves with others online, I suggest that they reveal how insights from the phenomenology of sociality can be used to show overlaps between offline and online interpersonal experiences of feeling togetherness.
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