Virtual vs. Organic Community

Today in class we talked about different views of whether or not virtual communities can replace the actual, real-life communities. Rheingold said yes, but Van Dijk said no. In my opinion, both are correct in some perspectives, but looking at my personal experiences, I have to say i agree with Van Dijk more than with Rheingold.

According to Van Dijk, virtual communities can "supplement but not replace" the real communities. From this point of view, I totally agree with Van Dijk. I remember one of my teammates asked the class one question today. He asked, can the Internet (or the online community) replace the actual job interview. While standing there and listening to the class answering this question, I formed my own response in my mind. In my opinion, the Internet or the online communities cannot "replace" the real interaction. However, it does provide a medium for people to keep in touch with, or to reach out for, their potential employers. Take myself for instance. I got my summer internships with two companies in Asia this year. None of the company had face-to-face interview with me. I first used the Internet to submit my resume to them, and after the back and forth emails between the recruiters and me, we had phone interviews. I believe this process sounds familiar with many college students. Without the medium provided by the Internet, I would have no chance to get the information from these Asian companies, and it would be more difficult for me to start the "please hire me" process.

However, I didn't get the internship simply by contacting the recruiters online. They had to get to know me in a more personal level before they decided to hire me. So, this is when the new technology cannot replace the real human interaction. People might argue, now we have Skype that we can use to have the face-to-face conversation with people on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so new technologies do replace the real communities. To be honest, I do not think so. Even if today I can have a job interview with my potential employers through Skype, I would still react differently from what I would do in a real job interview. Why? the reason is simple. I can imagine I will be a lot more nervous when sitting in front of a recruiter in his/her office than sitting in front of my Macbook in my own bedroom.

I believe the difference depends from individual to individual. Some people might claim that they do not feel any difference, but I still believe that there must be differences between a virtual community and a real community, based on the technology we have nowadays.

I don't know how the future technology will be like, and how it will make the virtual community similar, or almost the same, with the real one. But for now, I believe the virtual communities cannot replace the real one.