An online friendship begins when two people bond and have things in common, just like an offline relationship. The friends may share photos, email each other, or chat on the phone eventually. The friendship can become a source of support and provide emotional benefits even though the friends will never meet in person.
What makes online friendships work?
Not only do healthy social skills facilitate a budding friendship, but research also reveals that when someone shares positive words with us, a feeling of familiarity arises within us. We are simply drawn to those people in whose presence we feel comfortable.
But there are some negative aspects of social media. 1 Aside from cyberbullying, oversharing and sexting issues, social media also can put negative pressure on friendships, especially when one friend is very active about posting pictures, status updates and opinions that hurt others.
But Dunbars recent study, published in 2016, suggests that even though social media allows us to “break through the glass ceiling” of maintaining offline relationships and have larger social networks, it doesnt overcome our natural capacity for friendships.