Yes, every time I see a comment like this on some email list dismissing the value of internet relationships as not really real, I bite my tongue and resist the temptation to ask "then why are you here?"
Having spent a year at death's door, I can assure you that when you are physically unable to go out and get a life, the internet beats the hell out of laying in bed and staring at a blank wall (which I got so fucking sick of, I bought a screen to cover the damn wall and later put curtains over it so I wouldn't have to stare at the damn blank wall ever again).
A) How are phone calls "more real" than internet conversations?
B) Did you read the Reddit discussion you are criticizing? His handle is "Lucidending". He opted to go off medication in his final hours so he could be lucid and spend quality time with family before he checks out, something he was unable to do while completely fucked up on chemo and other drugs. He is spending his last hours with family and on the internet, the internet being a substitute for a physical world tour which he is physically unable to do.
> A) How are phone calls "more real" than internet conversations?
Bandwidth. While both are real -- thus making the phrase "more real" a bit awkward -- verbal communications transmit far more information than the words being spoken and I can't imagine the amount of typing it would take to convey the missing data. In that sense, it's "more" real.
Except that in some cases people exchange photos and other info online that you cannot exchange verbally. In the thread in question, the OP stated this was his "world tour" and folks posted links to photos, something you couldn't do by phone. You also couldn't have a phone conversation with multiple people in the same way. So I don't entirely agree. Different kinds of data can be shared. But it isn't necessarily "less" info, just different info.