March 18, 2003

In the jointly authored chapter “Net-Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities”, Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia pose and answer an impressive volley of questions meant to enhance our understanding of online communities and place them in an historical and personal context. Question 5 asks: How Does Virtual Community Affect “Real-Life” Community? I think this is one of the least discussed topics surrounding online community. However, after reading Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community”, I became aware of how the future of our local “real-life” communities is fundamentally in danger, and that virtual communities may play a role in their deterioration.

To avoid sounding like a doomsday advocate, I want to emphasize an important point articulated by Wellman and Gulia. They note that “community” is not a zero-sum game, where people spending time interacting online will necessarily spend less time interacting in “real-life”. Instead, they claim that online interaction can promote maintenance of offline, face-to-face relationships. According to analysis by Putnam in “Bowling Alone”, this issue deserves sustained focus both by pro and anti-online pundits. He hopes for development of virtual entertainment and communication that promotes increased social participation in “real-life” communities, not private participation. I get the sense that Putnam does not see “community” as a zero-sum game either, but at the same time, he worries that in the future it might become one.

To demonstrate their claim that virtual communities do not detract from real-life communities, Wellman and Gulia identify a few areas where they believe virtual communities have succeeded in enhancing conventional methods of communication. They believe email is as reasonable a way to maintain strong and weak ties over long distances as telephone conversations or letter writing. In addition, they cite university research groups, mixing email and face-to-face interaction, as exemplars of hybrid virtual/conventional interaction.

While these examples vigorously support the claim that community is not currently a zero-sum game, they fail to acknowledge the possibility that it will soon become one. Instead of approaching the dilemma of virtual community with a probing and far-sighted attitude, Wellman and Gulia seem to defensively glorify the status quo of the virtual community to answer its detractors. A truly productive discussion of “How Does Virtual Community Affect “Real-Life” Community?” would ponder the implications of our current virtual interactions for the future of real-life community instead of merely justifying the current tactics used in virtual communities.