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Exercise 2: My Online and Offline Behaviour

Consider:

  • Why did you behave differently online than you did offline?
  • Did your online behaviour have an impact on your offline behaviour, and if so, how?
  • Would you like your behaviour online to also happen offline? Why?
  • How does considering this help you manage your future online behaviour?

Online Relationships

We all have an idea of how we come across to other people. How we act can be affected by the situation we are in and the people we are with. Think about how you might present differently at work compared to being with friends and how this may change again around family members. People have also described feeling that they can be very different online compared to how they are ‘in the real world. 

Offline vs Online

How would you describe yourself offline?
(Make a note of all that apply, and any other words which describe you.)

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How would you describe yourself online?
(Make a note of all that apply, and any other words which describe you.)

What differences do you note between your online and offline selves? Are there qualities about your online self that you like and wish you could transfer into the real world? Make a note of them and they can be a start point for goals you set in planning for a good life.

So why are we different online?

It is often easier to relate to others online. They may share our interests, support us in a sense of being accepted and make us feel important or powerful. Unless we choose to let others online see us, as we really are, we can pretend to be whoever we want to be. Online relationships in some ways make fewer demands.

So what is the problem with online relationships?

When we engage with others online and form friendships, it is usually around something specific (such as the sexual images of minors). It means that a lot of time is then spent focusing on that particular topic, or things related to it (e.g. other software or security). While the friendships that we form online are very real, they have aspects to them that are very different than those offline.

For some people their online relationships act as a substitute for ‘real world’ social interaction. The ease, emotional safety and superficial nature of some people’s online relationships, both sexual and non-sexual, are often not as fulfilling as the more rounded experience offered by people’s offline relationships. Their online relationships are often more fleeting and artificial. This can be especially true of people’s online sexual relationships. Here the focus can easily become exclusively sexual. While for many people this is manageable, for others the desire for short-term sexual pleasure means that they allow themselves to develop patterns of online sexual behaviour that are ultimately damaging to both themselves and others. Many of these activities are legal but others are not. They might include the following:

  • chatting to adults about sex with minors online i.e. sharing fantasies
  • chatting to minors about sex online
  • using webcams to encourage minors to engage in sexual behaviour
  • exposing minors to sexual behaviour via webcam
  • voyeurism (hidden cameras)
  • ‘grooming’ minors with the intention of meeting them offline and sexually abusing them.

Think about your online relationships and answer the following questions: