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The ideas Best Family Cell Phone Plan of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between Best Family Cell Phone Plan what is considered Best Family Cell Phone Plan "on-line" and what is considered "off-line" has become Best Family Cell Phone Plan a subject of study in the field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" Best Family Cell Phone Plan and "off-line" is conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication (e.g. face time), respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, and "off-line" is reality (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater states that this Best Family Cell Phone Plan distinction is Best Family Cell Phone Plan "obviously far too simple". To support his argument that Best Family Cell Phone Plan the distinctions in relationships are more complex than Best Family Cell Phone Plan a Best Family Cell Phone Plan simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no Best Family Cell Phone Plan distinction between Best Family Cell Phone Plan an Best Family Cell Phone Plan "on-line" Best Family Cell Phone Plan relationship, such as Best Family Cell Phone Plan indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" relationship, such Best Family Cell Phone Plan as Best Family Cell Phone Plan being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone Best Family Cell Phone Plan can be regarded as an "on-line" experience Best Family Cell Phone Plan in some circumstances, and that the blurring of the distinctions between the uses of various technologies (such as PDA and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and Best Family Cell Phone Plan voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to use the term 'on-line' meaningfully in Best Family Cell Phone Plan the sense that was employed by the first generation Best Family Cell Phone Plan of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are The Best Scariest Movies Ever Made legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction Best Family Cell Phone Plan between "on-line" and "off-line", with a "general tendency Best Family Cell Phone Plan to assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction", Best Family Cell Phone Plan stressing, however, Best Family Cell Phone Plan that this does not mean that on-line relationships are being reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He conjectures that greater legal Best Family Cell Phone Plan status may be assigned to on-line relationships (pointing out Best Family Cell Phone Plan that contractual relationships, such as Best Book Coupon Discount Internet Price business transactions, on-line are already seen as just as "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to Best Family Cell Phone Plan be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. He also conjectures Best Diet For Good Abs that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may be seen by people Best Mortgage Company Rate as "rather quaint and not quite comprehensible" within 10 years
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The distinction where "on-line" is seen as virtuality and "off-line" as reality is sometimes inverted, with Best Family Cell Phone Plan "on-line" concepts being used to Best Family Cell Phone Plan define and to explain "off-line" activities, rather than (as per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with its desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) the other way around. Several cartoons by The New Yorker have satirized this. One includes Saint Peter asking for a user Best Family Cell Phone Plan name and a password before admitting a man Best Family Cell Phone Plan into Heaven. Another illustrates "the off-line store" where "All Best Family Cell Phone Plan items are actual size!", where Best Family Cell Phone Plan shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay for it!", and where Best Family Cell Phone Plan "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!". |