letters versus email

my dissertation topic is online English 101 classes.  i'm most interested in how instructors and stud nets create, or try to create a sense of classroom bonding through the digital space provided.  do all instructors take a more hands off approach (i've certainly see this)?  do all students take online thinking it will be easier?  these and many more questions fuel my research.  when i explain to ludite, i'm often forced to provide evidence of connections being made online, and of senses of bonding in digital space.  my membership in fan communities and facebook usually serve as those examples.  but for extreme ludites like my dad i bring up letter writing.  prior to the 1960's, and maybe even later, many people were building lasting friendships on nothing more than postal letters.  i just finished watching season 1 of Downton Abbey and the letters being written and delivered in the early 1910's were amazing.  gossip traveled through letter, news about the continent, the impending war, politics, all traveled via letter.  lasting connections were forged in gossip, and credibility was built through news.  these were rhetorical moves created and discussed by early epistolary authors (many of whom wrote to improve the minds of women, blah).

so i know all this, however, when faced with odd real world news of something similar i immediately cringed.  someone was recently telling me they met someone online, and formed a lasting bond he expects to turn into marriage with a girl in russia.  she is quite a bit younger than him.  i immediately found myself questioning this completely unknown girls motives.  i questioned the possibility of a bond through these means.  however, i'm usually pro-this type of communication/interaction.  so what's the difference?  why are we still so turned off by the idea of a mail-order bride, a bride who in many cases is volunteering for the job?  cities that have legalized prostitution have found the prostitute has a better life, less disease, more choice, more money, less harm done to her because she has more control, doesn't have to hide everything.  so choosing to enter the mail-order bride market provides these women with choice.  providing them the opportunity to converse regularly provides the potential couple more interaction than some arranged marriages have now.  so i guess  my real issue is that i can teach the idea that many people enter marriage for business arrangements, less for love, but i can't act out that understanding in real life.  whether the couple-hood is mediated through paper and pencil, or computer and internet, the business aspect that started that potential match is still there.  so where would a site like match.com fit into my completely arbitrary scale?  when people sign up for these sites are they looking for love? companionship? partnership?  in any case, all of these emotions, values, lifestyles are now being mediated through a computer screen.  do we truly know how to tell the difference?