Anthropology 295: Anthropology of Media

Daniel Miller and Don Slater’s article “Relationships” was cool look into seeing what other cultures view and use the Internet for. Personally I use it for more entertainment purposes, as well at times communication. Yet Miller’s and Slater’s perspective on the use of it in Trinidadian culture was interesting to see. The fact that the Internet helped to patch up the void that distance created when people left home is important. While telephones were always an option, the expense made it more of a special occasion type deal rather than a day-to-day one. With the email and the Internet, Trinidadians were able to maintain strong ties by talking with one another whenever one wanted more casually. The use of email not only allowed maintaining of relationships that pre-existed, but also make friendship with people that had never met. The most interesting example I found was the one where someone looked up there father online, and now thanks to the Internet maintains a relationship with their father that they had not known growing up.
One of the lines that I found interesting was from on of the interviews that they conducted. The questioner asks, “So part of being in a real relationship is getting into real issues?” The interviewee agrees. Yet this notion of the qualifications of a real relationship is established through value of the content versus proximity or distance is valid. What ones talks about is a vital part of the degree of intimacy and friendship a person has with someone. It all depends on how ones utilize it. Before reading this article I would have most likely argued that online relationships were secondary to “real” life ones. Yet after reading this, I realize that that is not necessarily so. Online line relationships can help solidify pre-existing ones, if not create new ones on their own. While in person may seem the better means of communication, the Internet is not as trivial as I had once viewed it to be in forming quality connections.