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