An [article in Saturday’s Telegraph](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2007/06/09/dlwomen09.xml) talks about women’s online friendships, and suggests that any stigma around meeting people online which existed ten years ago has almost entirely disappeared.

What’s interesting, though, is this comment from [Mark Griffiths](http://ess.ntu.ac.uk/griffiths/), a psychologist at [Nottingham Trent University](http://ntu.ac.uk/):

> “People reveal themselves far quicker emotionally online, because they feel it’s anonymous. My guess is that as we move more towards Skype-based communications [talking over the internet rather than typing] people will be more guarded.”

Does the fact that Skype allows you to hear and see the person you’re having a conversation with make you less open? Or does it increase trust?

This blog post about [progressive trust](http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/08/progressive_tru.html) explains one theory of how people begin to trust each other. It talks about *credential exchange*, which is the way people gradually swap pieces of information about themselves to build up a better picture of who the other person is.

Seeing and hearing someone can be a big part of this — and Skype lets you do just that. I’d argue that Skype makes us *more* open online.