ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the role of self-disclosure in virtual relationships and how the absence of gating affects the nature of virtual relationships. One of the features of face-to-face communication is that it creates a situation in which people can erect metaphorical gates to prevent effective interaction. These ‘gates’ are things such as physical features, personality characteristics or geographical location, all of which can be barriers to relationships forming as they can prevent effective interaction from occurring – but none of these are present in computer-mediated communication. The term deindividuation was used to explain the behaviour of people in crowds: how the ability to feel anonymous and lose the sense of personal identity create the conditions for a crowd to turn into a mob. The internet has provided the opportunity for people to adopt a different identity, as it is fairly difficult to check if they are telling the truth.
