Re: About IRC Addiction

I have been on IRC since 1993, my freshman year in college. I am now a second year grad student in psychology. Some friends of mine introduced me to #filipino. I was drawn to it b/c I felt out of place in my new school where I entered during the winter quarter and not fall. In the fall quarter, everyone had already found their cliques and niches. Feeling so intimidated in such a large university, IRC was a great forum for me to find friends and find a place to belong. Soon, I began to feel more confident and less alone, and eventually, more social b/c of my positive experiences on IRC. (Like you, I became addicted to IRC as well. I even attended IRC reunion parties. People from all over the country and all over the world came to this one party, from New Jersey to Australia. Amazing.) I met many wonderful people online and am still in touch with a few of them. It has been six years now since we all first met. These new online friendships then enabled me to begin to reach out to people IRL, and make friendships f2f at my own school.

I soon started a romantic relationship later on during my freshman year. In the years that followed, I used IRC less and less, and stopped for about a year or two, then I would sporadically log on in the next few years. Lately I have been on again, still joining #filipino and have recently added #california and #asian. It is a great feeling to still feel a part of IRC, and I feel really lucky to witness the evolution of IRC.

BTW, I noticed in your past postings that you were doing research on IRC. My very experiences on IRC has also led me to want to do my dissertation on internet chat rooms. My problem now is finding a target population and clinical relevance for my dissertation topic. I was about to research friendships and romantic relationships that develop in chat rooms, but I could not find a good enough rationale (if any) for doing my clinical dissertation on it. So I decided to change my topic to chat therapy rooms, or targetting the elderly population, or maybe adolescents. I don't know! I am really confused now. Any ideas or advice?

Marie

Replies:

Re: About IRC Addiction, by John, 9/16/99

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