Internet Relationships or Illusions?

What kind of relationships do you really have with Facebook Friends and Twitter followers? How does a virtual relationship differ from an offline relationship? We may get some clues from an article Mayhill Fowler wrote in the Hoffington Post, entitled Taking the Me from Social Media, quoted below:

But the heady sensation of connectedness induced by social media whisks the user quickly past contemplation of the sands upon which these Internet relationships are built.

Real Relationships Online

“Real relationships” can be online OR offline. When I describe my mission to “turn friends and followers into real relationships,” I do not necessarily mean to move them offline, as in the movie You’ve Got Mail. Online relationships can be very real, as illustrated by the article excerpted below, which (surprisingly) was written decades ago, when “social media” meant primarily AOL chat rooms!