In the traditional community, we search through our pool of neighbors and professional colleagues, of acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances, in order to find people who share our values and interests. We then exchange information about one another, disclose and discuss our mutual interests, and sometimes we become friends. In a virtual community we can go directly to the place where our favorite subjects are being discussed, then get acquainted with those who share our passions, or who use words in a way we find attractive. You will find that your chances of making friends are magnified by orders of magnitude over the old methods of finding a peer group. You can be fooled about people in cyberspace, behind the cloak of words.
Virtual communities can help their members cope with information overload.
The problem with the information age, especially for students and knowledge workers who spend their time immersed in the info-flow, is that there is too much information available and no effective filters for sifting the key data that are useful and interesting to us as individuals. I don't know, but who are intensely interested in that specific topic, to find it when they need it. I don't know do the same thing for me. I have to keep my friends in mind and send them pointers instead of throwing my informational discards into the virtual scrap-heap. A marriage of altruism and self-interest.