ABSTRACT
Having cleared away some broad objections to technologically mediated friendship in Chapter 8, I now turn to specific concerns about particular forms of mediated interaction. I begin in this chapter by considering the ethical import of asynchronous communication to friendship, especially in light of its ability to allow friends to maintain boundaries between each other. This boundary-maintenance has struck many as contrary to the spirit of friendship. But in light of the conclusions reached in Chapter 2 about the importance of complementary differences and the conceptual possibility of valuing friends as “other selves” without presuming excessive similarity, I am skeptical of this claim. In what follows, I argue that the boundaries reinforced by asynchronous communication turn out to be highly compatible with healthy friendship.
