For this week’s post, I decided to ask around for stories of relationships that left virtuality.
I found that not many people have had this experience, but one of my friends, who I’ll call Mark, remembered meeting with a girl (Stacy) he first met online around 9
th grade.
One of Mark’s friends gave him Stacy’s screen name and they chatted online for a week or two.
Mark described his initial impression of Stacy as quite positive, she was funny and seemed to have a good sense of humor.
Blonde haired blue-eyed Stacy was the same age as Mark, but attended a different high-school.
Online, Stacy was a “cool” girl he felt some romantic attraction to.
Because of their initial positive interaction and attraction, they agreed to meet up “in real life” to see a movie.
Upon seeing Stacy, Mark was immediately disappointed because she was much less physically attractive than he had imagined given the limited information he had gathered about her appearance from their conversations. During the movie, his impression deteriorated further since she chatted with her girlfriend throughout about “stupid girly stuff”. Mark pointed out that he had perceived her to be unique and interesting online but in person she just seemed to be a ‘typical girl’ he didn’t have much in common with.
After the movie Mark described how he “felt awkward being around a person I couldn’t stand” and decided not to meet up with Stacy again or even continue chatting online.
Certain aspects of Mark’s experience seem to fit with some of the theories we have discussed in this class. First of all, there was some effect of the Hyperpersonal model given Mark’s elevated impression of Stacy as being very physically attractive and possessing a good sense of humor given the limited cues available from their online conversations. Also, at least one of McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factors, “Removal of Gating Features” seemed to play a role in his initial attraction. Since Mark couldn’t see right away that Stacy was physically unattractive, he continued to chat with her and became attracted to aspects of her personality that he would never have known if he had met her in real life first. These “Gating Features” in FtF interactions would probably have caused Mark to immediately dismiss any chance of a romantic attraction. Mark’s experience with Stacy seems to contradict the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) that Professor Hancock described in class. URT predicts that the process of learning more about another person (reducing uncertainty) should lead to increased liking and attraction—however, this doesn’t fit with Mark’s jarring experience with taking a relationship outside of virtuality.
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5 comments:
Amber, Interesting experience that I'd never want to get myself into... blind date with two friends. Anyway, Mark's impression formation of Stacy's attractiveness is a great example of how we extrapolate information from the Hyperpersonal theory. Mark was attracted to her humor and personality, and assumed the rest of her persona would follow.
I also found the Uncertainty Reduction Theory didn't work as predicted from my experiences. Stacey's unattractiveness definitely outweighed any positive opinions formed by reducing uncertainty.
Interesting post Amber. It seems that Mark’s situation contradicts the predictions of Ramirez & Wang. After only two weeks of mediated communication, Ramirez & Wang would predict a positive outcome for Mark & Stacy’s offline relationship, however it did not turn out that way. Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that socialization habits of 9th graders are not capable of analyzation.
Hi Amber,
Great post! I find it very interesting that your friend found a girl more “typical” after receiving more cues in the FtF environment. I would have assumed that with an excess of cues, each person would seem more individual. I also experienced the Hyperpersonal effect online, which led to somewhat negative outcomes upon our modality switch. I wonder if this Hyperpersonal effect contributes to the fact that people as young as junior-high school students are willing to meet their online chat buddies in real life due to these inflated expectations. Good job tying in McKenna’s relational factors as well.
Good job,
Christina
Hi Amber,
Great post! I find it very interesting that your friend found a girl more “typical” after receiving more cues in the FtF environment. I would have assumed that with an excess of cues, each person would seem more individual. I also experienced the Hyperpersonal effect online, which led to somewhat negative outcomes upon our modality switch. I wonder if this Hyperpersonal effect contributes to the fact that people as young as junior-high school students are willing to meet their online chat buddies in real life due to these inflated expectations. Good job tying in McKenna’s relational factors as well.
Good job,
Christina
Hi Amber,
I enjoyed reading your post and I thought you did an excellent job explaining and analyzing Mark’s experience. I think it’s funny how our mind tends to exaggerate the characteristics of another person when talking in CMC, as the Hyperpersonal model explains. Mark seems to have gotten caught up in his exaggerations, automatically taking the optimistic assumption that he was speaking to someone he would want to be in a relationship with. I think this kind of exaggeration happens a lot more often when you are speaking to someone of the opposite sex, because as the conversation gets more involved (and your optimistic hope of a potential relationship starts to materialize), your attraction for the other person magnifies your exaggerated impression. It was interesting, however, that Mark developed such high expectations after such a short-term interaction with Stacy, which seems to go against Ramirez and Wang’s prediction of a positive outcome in such a case. Anyway, great job writing your blog post!
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