Online friends VS real life friends

[Lewis]

Do you consider online friends just as important as real life friends?

What's your opinion and thoughts on the differences, if any, between the two?

[lemons]

yes online friends are more fun

[buttons]

definitely important, been friends with some on here longer than people i know irl and i tell people on here more than most irl
BUT in saying that, no-one could ever ever replace my best friend even if i talk to people here daily and her weekly

there's not much difference between my best friend and people on here but i definitely have less of a filter and limits with her

[Absently]

yeah definitely, i'm so close to some people on here and i tell them just as much as i'd tell my friends irl

[Matt]

A few of the ones I'm really close with online, yeah. The only difference is I haven't met them irl!

[wixard]

My answer changes with time, currently I'm in my final year and all my friends are busy as am I and we barely speak, but I speak to Internet friends daily and often

they're basically what's getting me through each day rn but like jen said nobody could ever replace my real life friends and when we do hang out and have time like during summer they're obviously my number one priority

[Shar]

I'm also in my final year at uni, some of my friends have already graduated and are busy with work and the others are also final years and are as busy as I am. We whatsapp as much as we can but the conversation always dies. I'm not really close to many people online anymore tbh and I wasn't close to that many to begin with anyway. There's a few people online I am really close to and I talk to quite often and are really there for me. They can't fill the void of my rl friends though, it's just not the same.

[dbgtz]

I think it's too vague to cluster them into just two groups. I consider myself closer to 2, maybe 3 or 4 or so online people than my "real life" friends, but then I would say online friends are slightly less important. I think it's mainly because those people are basically "real life" friends by this point I don't distinguish them :P The difference between most of my "real life" friends, unlike those 2-4 online is that I don't really speak to them about anything meaningful. If I had some kind of problem, I could not go to my "real life" friends we just seemed to be people who ended up lumped together. At least that's my home friends, uni friends I could probably talk to for minor assistance but nothing too weighted.

[GoldenMerc]

Yes

[-:Undertaker:-]

Not at all, real life friends are (usually) genuine. It's very easy to portray yourself different behind a computer screen.

[Kardan]

Not at all, real life friends are (usually) genuine. It's very easy to portray yourself different behind a computer screen.

Pretty much this.

[Ekelektra]

I value my friendships with online friends just as much as I do with friends offline but I think real life friendships are more important.

Like I find people online easier to talk to but at the moment I don't have many friends in real life and I can have a meaningful conversation online with someone and still feel lonely. Online friendships aren't as satisfying I guess, they're not the same although people online mean just as much to me as people irl.

[Kimmy]

It's sort of difficult because the people in real life know you entirely as the person you are. It's easy to filter stuff out online and it's harder to trust people from behind a screen.

Saying that, I met my partner online too so there's obviously positives? I still value my online friends because I can talk to them an laze about at the same time. ;)

[RyRy]

RL friends are always there when you feel really crappy over a long period of time

Online friends are there when you've had a little spate with somebody and need cheering up.

Both have their merits, and I think of them both equally (moreso considering most of my online friends became rl friends cuz i met them init)