It’s mindboggling to think that 20 years ago the Internet was barely in existence. Today the Internet governs mainstream culture. We do our homework on blogs, conduct business meetings through video chat, meet future spouses on social networking sites, and find information on virtually any topic of interest we could ever think of. It’s hard to imagine that it is possible for the Internet to become any more a part of our lives than it already is, but it is an inevitable progression of continually developing technology. How will the theories we learned in COMM 245 develop with it?
The increased use and advancement of Internet communicative technologies such as video-chat, Skype, and entire virtual-based worlds will significantly change the use of some of the theories we learned about. Certain theories like SIDE will stay constant, regardless of how open or detailed the Internet becomes. Whether someone is on the Internet talking over a live video feed or chatting on AIM, group identities and social categories will remain salient. That’s how it is in real life too.
Other theories that relate more to how a person chooses to present themselves, having the medium of the Internet in between to mask certain elements of their personality, will lose strength. It won’t be long before we are all communicating with each other in crystal clear digital video over the computer. The Hyperpersonal model and the Proteus Effect rely heavily on the idea that people can selectively self-present. Hyperpersonal says that people will latch on to the few cues that are given and exaggerate them. However, in the future, I don’t think CMC will have that much fewer cues than FtF. Concepts such as Social Distance Theory will continue to hold, because people will always want to choose the leanest media to lie, but the extent of its power will undoubtedly decrease. I don’t think that purely text-based CMC will be around for much longer. As the Internet becomes more advanced, there will be greater avenues for us to connect with other people and as we become more and more familiar with them, the gap between CMC and FtF will shrink. It will be interesting to see how this is analyzed with new theories.
Something I think will become more prevalent is the issue of Problematic Internet Use. With more advanced and new types of Internet technologies, there is greater likelihood for PIU. We rely on the Internet so much already, it is scary to think how much more is possible. However, I think after a point in time, such a high level of Internet use may become the normal, and even expected, at which point PIU may no longer be considered a problem.
I think this class did a great job of keeping up with the latest research and developments in social computing, but this is a continuously developing field, and therefore requires a continuously developing class. In the future, I think there will be even more emphasis on video and voice based CMC as opposed to text-based. I think that more attention will be given to the effects of Internet regulation once even more people are on it, even more regularly, exploring the ever-growing things that it offers. We talked a lot in COMM 245 about deception, particularly towards and from the people we interacted with online. More cues will make deception between people harder, but the greater problem will be deception by the owners and moderators of technologies and networks on the Internet, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. The recordability of the Internet will become a much bigger issue, and it will be interesting to see how that effects the way people interact over it. This class has introduced me to aspects of the Internet I did not even know existed. As dorky as it sounds, I find myself analyzing everything people do on the internet through the scope of COMM 245. I guess that means I learned something!
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