This study aimed to analyze new social interactions (affectionated/sexual) mediated by computer in Internet chat-rooms. The adopted theoretical perspective includes authors that study contemporaneous social conjuncture. It intends to analyze the presupposed idea that the “internauts” may consider the chat-rooms as an extension of their real “life” or a completely different environment. Its hypothesis is that the desire to turn “virtual” relationships to “real” is more frequent when computer users consider the two interactions as equivalent. A hundred and forty questionnaires answered by chat-room users were studied. The analysis of the data confirmed the presupposed idea as well as the hypothesis explained above. Therefore we were able to conclude that the existent ambiguity among the users about their perception of chat aspects has caused relationship problems, especially during the transference from the “virtual” to the “real” environment.
Contemporaneity; Identity; Affectionated/sexual relationships; Internet
