Connecting

by Chayko, Mary

• ISBN13: 9780791454336
• ISBN10: 0791454339
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

How do we become connected to people we have never met in person? From celebrities to faraway relatives, from favorite writers to thinkers to people we meet on-line, we form a host of subtle, invisible, but very real social connections with distant others. In Connecting, Mary Chayko investigates how physically separated people manage to create a sense of connectedness -- a "meeting of the minds" -- and feel undeniably, if unexpectedly, bonded. Through dozens of personal accounts, the book considers the social "fallout" of connecting with absent others -- the benefits and hazards -- on our societies, communities, relationships, and individual selves. The result is a comprehensive yet intimate look at social bonding as it is rarely recorded: an examination of the bonds and communities we form across great distances, and even across time, in the age of the Internet.

Author Biography

Mary Chayko is Assistant Professor and Chair of Sociology at the College of St. Elizabeth

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
A Meeting of the Minds	1	(6)
From Cave Paintings to Chat Rooms: The Sociomental Foundation of Connectedness	7	(32)
Making the Connection...Across Time, Space, and Cyberspace	39	(40)
Till Death Do We Disconnect? Keeping Connections Alive	79	(22)
How Real Does It Get? Properties of Sociomental Bonds	101	(26)
The Social ``Fallout'' of Connecting at a Distance	127	(36)
Appendix 1 Investigating the Sociomental: The Face-to-Face Interview Methodology	163	(18)
Appendix 2 Cyberspace Connecting: The Online Survey Methodology	181	(6)
Notes	187	(14)
References	201	(28)
Index	229