Can You Really Know Someone Online?

April 4, 2026

I recently watched a video on youtube called Digital Intimacy, which I will link down below at the end of this essay. It caught my attention because I would have had a much different answer a few years ago but with the way our society has developed it brings in a new perspective.

The main point of the video is can you really know someone online? There were some answers that simply state no, you cannot, without having that physical interaction you have no idea what their mannerisms entails, “you can smile by the phone but cry in your room” (0:10). Others state that your online persona is just another version of you, not necessarily a detachment of your personality but a branch growing off. Both of those answers have valid points. There's a lot that can be hidden over the phone, a lot to be missed since social media is purely what you choose to put out but that's also a very real side of meeting someone in reality. Do you ever really know them? You can, absolutely but in discovering them fully, there's a chance you uncover a second face. I think everybody has had their fair share of that. 

During the year of Covid our entire lives turned towards a digital screen. Any source of communication was done through a text message or phone call, I was playing Fortnite 24/7 and had no headset so that phone was working overtime. Which is crazy that I just brought that up because I did actually make a friend during Covid year…by playing Fortnite. School was still in session, I had just joined the student council and in that class you had a ‘family’ of about four to five people I want to say. The oldest was the ‘leader’ of the family, I was a Junior so thankfully I was not in charge. I did not know anybody at all and this was all online still so I honestly didn't even know having a student council family was a thing until I got a message on Instagram from this senior, the apparent leader of the family. We ended up having a lot of common interests, he played baseball and I played softball and we both played Fortnite and from then on a friendship grew - I should say a rivalry grew because he became my enemy in that game so fast. That was about six years ago and every now and then we still check in just to see what's going on. I didn't think I necessarily had a tie to this topic I was just writing but this is great because getting to know him purely over screens at first was interesting, I really didn't know if our friendship would continue in the real world but then after meeting him in person he was pretty much the exact same, definitely not fit to be in charge either by any means. We were able to converse as we had over the past few months. I felt like he was pretty transparent so the image I had in my head was kind of exactly what he showed. So this is where it can be 50/50 because I feel like getting to know someone truly highly depends on the person, do you want to create a mutual connection with them? If not it'll be obvious because only half or less then will be put out. 

There’s definitely pros and cons to meeting someone online but I don't think it's impossible to not know someone. You would have to do more than just texting, like calling, facetiming, something where you're able to grasp how they go about things or even just the tone of their voice or you know even just to make sure they're a real person. Which is where my final thought on this comes into play. Make sure they are a real person. I very much believe that our digital presence is, at this point, a part of our physical presence but we as a society are losing the art of physical connection. Especially if you're creating romantic relationships online I think that's definitely something that needs to be determined in person, there's so much more in connection than just conversation and it's incredibly easy to create a false image of them, build them up to be a person you want to be rather than their actual self. It's like you're creating an AI girlfriend/boyfriend. Like I said, it's not impossible to know someone online, people are very much capable of being open books in every aspect but I think it's important we don't lose eye contact in our conversations.