Going abroad made it difficult for the friends and family to keep in touch with me regularly. Phone calls were expensive and e-mail correspondence was rare because of the lapse in time but one person, my best friend, found a way to communicate with me like I was next door. We were used to talking to each other daily, like sisters, filling each other in on every detail, drama, or problem we encountered. We were each others' support by means of instant calls to our cell phones. Knowing that I would not have a phone, my friend immediately arranged talking times on AIM were we could correspond synchronously. It turned out with the limited internet access I had, my AIM connection was not guaranteed. The only websites that I had guaranteed access to all the time was the university websites which gave me unlimited access to e-mail. We both felt we were out of options until with the need of a new phone aroused with my best friend and she decided to invest in a BlackBerry. With world wide web at the palm of her hands 24/7 we knew that this was the key to access to synchronous contact with one another despite the sixteen hour time difference. We even coined a term for our CMC communication, IE, which stood for instant e-mail. Anytime I had something to tell her I would e-mail her and she would immediately respond which virtually turned our e-mail accounts into instant message. It worked like a charm until I returned back to the states.
Being that we knew each other for years the two McKenna relationship facilitation factors that played a role in our communication was identifiability and the connecting to similar others. Growing up with each other and attending school with each other from Pre-K to eighth grade allowed us to know one another better than we knew ourselves.This through identifiabity we could easily relate to one another, preventing the formation of gates to our self disclosing and hence continuing the open connection in our friendship. We also followed the circumstances of the connecting to similar others theory through the factor of knowing that we came from the same neighborhood, similar family and financial backgrounds and have the same projected future goals of becoming professionals. These factors allows us communicate our thoughts more freely even online because we know that we could understand each other easily on basis of our shared backgrounds without feeling the need to hold back anything or overly explain our thoughts.It was a given that she knew where I was coming from and vice versa.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
5. She's not who she says she is
For this assignment I chose to analyze the online relationship situation that Professor Hancock briefly discussed in class last week. It started when Thomas Montgomery created a new version of himself: Tommy, an 18-year-old marine sniper who was serving in Iraq when he met Jessi, a 17-year-old girl from West Virginia. Due to Tommy’s status as an active serviceman, his Internet access was restricted, so Montgomery introduced Jessi to Tom Sr., Tommy’s dad, in order to deliver messages between the two parties. Eventually the two grew so fond of each other that Tommy proposed Marriage and Jessi accepted.
Eventually Montgomery’s wife Cindy found out what was going on and she sent Jessi a message explaining the situation and warning her about trusting people online. Jessi then turned to a friend who Montgomery had mentioned; Brian Barrett, a 22 year old who worked with Montgomery. Barrett confirmed Cindy’s story and Jessi was furious. She began going to Barrett for support. This didn’t go over well with Montgomery and, after much back and forth amongst the three of them, including real-life humiliation at work, Thomas shot Barrett dead one night as his shift ended. A police investigation eventually linked Montgomery and Barrett via Jessi, and the detective investigating phoned her to tell her she might be in danger. When a local police officer arrived at Jessi’s address at the request of the investigating police officers, he found that Jessi was away at summer camp, and her mother, Mary, had been using her identity the entire time.
This case involves a number of instances of digital deception. To start, Tommy and Tom Sr. were both created from thin air. Tommy’s life, which Montgomery explained many details of, was entirely fictitious. It was mostly conventional signals that Montgomery could simply talk about and be believed. The only real assessment signal that made up Tommy’s identity was a picture of a marine that Montgomery sent to Jessi; however, because there was never a plan to actually meet, this signal was not as high cost as it would be otherwise. The Tom Sr. character served to reassure Jessi that Tommy was the real thing. He was based mostly on the real Thomas Montgomery so his traits were not hard to fake; the only signals that Tom Sr. had to fake were his name (very low cost, conventional) and the idea of having a son (low cost, conventional). On the other side of the conversation was Jessi, who was made up of a number of assessment signals, which kept Montgomery and Barrett from questioning her existence. Jessi sent Montgomery countless pictures over time that would have been impossible to fake, as well as multiple pairs of underwear that a teenage girl would wear. All of this over time was very believable, and it wouldn’t have been possible if Jessi weren’t a real person, but Montgomery never thought of the idea that the mementos were coming from Jessi’s mother. Ironically, Barrett, the man who was killed, was the only person who wasn’t being deceptive in this ordeal.
This case follows Wallace’s attraction factors pretty well. Although the online sequence of attraction is reversed, physical attraction did play a part once the two parties had exchanged pictures. It served to further the infatuation that Montgomery had with Jessi. Proximity, as far as online spaces, was what introduced the two people to each other. They both frequented the online gaming site Pogo and the only reason that they met each other was because they both were in a room for teenagers. Over a period of the intersection frequency grew, and they took their relationship outside of the gaming site. The common ground that Tommy and Jessi shared was their age and their interest in online gaming. Finally, Disinhibition played a huge role in Mary’s willingness to continue with the lie that she was Jessi, and to send the photos and underwear to Montgomery.
McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors also played a part in sustaining this relationship. The removal of gating features facilitated the interaction between two fake parties because there were no barriers that would have kept them from interacting in real life. Interaction control was key in sustaining the lie. At one point Barrett asked to visit Jessi on his vacation and Mary, not wishing to reveal her true self, denied him that form of interaction. By keeping interaction strictly online, Mary and Thomas kept their lies going much longer. The idea of connecting to similar others is explained by the common ground that the two shared in Wallace’s attraction features. The “Getting the goods” factor of McKenna’s theory does not fit this situation, however, because I believe that if Mary had done any type of searching for Tommy or Tom Sr. she could have deduced that the whole thing was fake. This whole situation is truly a case study in online deception and relationships.
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5, Option 2 An Online Dating Success Story
5 Sleep with me...I mean my boss
Eventually Montgomery’s wife Cindy found out what was going on and she sent Jessi a message explaining the situation and warning her about trusting people online. Jessi then turned to a friend who Montgomery had mentioned; Brian Barrett, a 22 year old who worked with Montgomery. Barrett confirmed Cindy’s story and Jessi was furious. She began going to Barrett for support. This didn’t go over well with Montgomery and, after much back and forth amongst the three of them, including real-life humiliation at work, Thomas shot Barrett dead one night as his shift ended. A police investigation eventually linked Montgomery and Barrett via Jessi, and the detective investigating phoned her to tell her she might be in danger. When a local police officer arrived at Jessi’s address at the request of the investigating police officers, he found that Jessi was away at summer camp, and her mother, Mary, had been using her identity the entire time.
This case involves a number of instances of digital deception. To start, Tommy and Tom Sr. were both created from thin air. Tommy’s life, which Montgomery explained many details of, was entirely fictitious. It was mostly conventional signals that Montgomery could simply talk about and be believed. The only real assessment signal that made up Tommy’s identity was a picture of a marine that Montgomery sent to Jessi; however, because there was never a plan to actually meet, this signal was not as high cost as it would be otherwise. The Tom Sr. character served to reassure Jessi that Tommy was the real thing. He was based mostly on the real Thomas Montgomery so his traits were not hard to fake; the only signals that Tom Sr. had to fake were his name (very low cost, conventional) and the idea of having a son (low cost, conventional). On the other side of the conversation was Jessi, who was made up of a number of assessment signals, which kept Montgomery and Barrett from questioning her existence. Jessi sent Montgomery countless pictures over time that would have been impossible to fake, as well as multiple pairs of underwear that a teenage girl would wear. All of this over time was very believable, and it wouldn’t have been possible if Jessi weren’t a real person, but Montgomery never thought of the idea that the mementos were coming from Jessi’s mother. Ironically, Barrett, the man who was killed, was the only person who wasn’t being deceptive in this ordeal.
This case follows Wallace’s attraction factors pretty well. Although the online sequence of attraction is reversed, physical attraction did play a part once the two parties had exchanged pictures. It served to further the infatuation that Montgomery had with Jessi. Proximity, as far as online spaces, was what introduced the two people to each other. They both frequented the online gaming site Pogo and the only reason that they met each other was because they both were in a room for teenagers. Over a period of the intersection frequency grew, and they took their relationship outside of the gaming site. The common ground that Tommy and Jessi shared was their age and their interest in online gaming. Finally, Disinhibition played a huge role in Mary’s willingness to continue with the lie that she was Jessi, and to send the photos and underwear to Montgomery.
McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors also played a part in sustaining this relationship. The removal of gating features facilitated the interaction between two fake parties because there were no barriers that would have kept them from interacting in real life. Interaction control was key in sustaining the lie. At one point Barrett asked to visit Jessi on his vacation and Mary, not wishing to reveal her true self, denied him that form of interaction. By keeping interaction strictly online, Mary and Thomas kept their lies going much longer. The idea of connecting to similar others is explained by the common ground that the two shared in Wallace’s attraction features. The “Getting the goods” factor of McKenna’s theory does not fit this situation, however, because I believe that if Mary had done any type of searching for Tommy or Tom Sr. she could have deduced that the whole thing was fake. This whole situation is truly a case study in online deception and relationships.
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5, Option 2 An Online Dating Success Story
5 Sleep with me...I mean my boss
5: Losing a connection
The way we form and keep up relationships in an online world is much different than those that are predominately based on face to face interaction. When I was in middle school, a good friend of mine moved to
At first we talked together fairly often, mostly about the differences he was noticing between the States and
The factors that played the greatest role in our relationship and its slow disintegration are McKenna’s connection to similar others, and Wallace’s proximity factor. First, the connecting to similar others from McKenna is basically what it sounds like. We tend to build relationships with those we identify with, share common ground with, and who have similar beliefs as us. At first, it seemed we had a lot in common: we grew up together, knew the same people, liked the same music and TV shows, etc. At first, when we talked, it was easy to talk about what was going on around here or how things were different over there because my friend had not been gone long enough, and everything was still fresh and interesting. After a while, though, our interests slowly diverged, and we were more and more interested in the things happening around us that the other would have a hard time appreciating. We were now involved in different activities with different groups of friends. Because of this it seemed like there was less and less to write about, and naturally, we wrote to each other less. With the amount of common ground between us shrinking, our relationship weakened.
The other factor that played a big role in all this is Wallace’s proximity factor. Wallace says that we tend to build relationships with people who are physically close to us, that we have a lot of interaction with. In the online, CMC world, this holds true with those that you frequently meet in cyberspace. My relationship with my friend follows this in reverse. We started our friendship with a great deal of proximity: we went to the same school, and saw each other on the weekends. After he left, we were reduced to interacting online, either via IM or email, and definitely not nearly as often as when he lived in the States. Once we had less and less in common to talk about we naturally didn’t talk to each other as much. This reduced our proximity to each other even further, and weakened our relationship. With a weaker relationship, neither of us would want to talk to each other as much as we used to, which again reduced proximity further. This spiraled out to the point where we never really talk anymore, unless he is visiting
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5. Long Distance Attraction Formation
Two years ago, while I was attending a different university, I was close friends with a girl from England, whom I will call Emily, for anonymity’s sake. She was my tennis buddy and we were good friends during the year, but it was not a romantic relationship, rather a “best buds” kind of situation, especially since she already had a boyfriend. When the year ended, I had found that I would be transferring to a different school, and coincidentally, Emily was also going elsewhere – she was heading back to England to continue her studies at the London School of Economics. We promised to continue our friendship and keep in close contact with one another through IM, email, and phone.
Throughout the summer and during the next school year, we frequently exchanged messages with each other through IM and Facebook. She had told me that a few weeks before the school year ended, that she had a nasty fight with her boyfriend and they had broken up. She seemed to turn to me for consolation and I tried to give her the most encouraging and uplifting messages I could that the lean media types would allow me. We seemed to be getting closer and closer to each other the more frequently we shared our experiences with each other, especially since we were both transfers students to new universities. We shared what Wallace (1999) and Clark (1996) describe as “common ground,” which is the formation of attraction between two people based on mutually shared experiences or beliefs and the proportion of shared attitudes between each other. We could each relate to our shared sense of loneliness and anxiety associated with starting out in a new environment in which you don’t know many people initially. Also, since we were using mostly lean media, it was easy for us to manipulate the proportion of shared attitudes and beliefs we had between each other – not for the sake of manipulation, but to strengthen the supportive bond we had formed between each other.
The more frequently Emily and I had interacted with each other online, the closer we became, it seemed. I had sensed that an attraction between us was beginning to form – especially through our increasing underlying use of innuendo and double-talk in our IM/Facebook conversations. When her birthday came up, I had e-mailed her a song by G. Love & Special Sauce that was titled with her name, and at this point, as we were talking over IM, she became completely disinhibited (in which Joinson (2001) notes that CMC in general has high levels of disinhibition effects, such as self-disclosure, which is certainly true here) and confessed how much she regrets not having acted on her attraction while we were going to school together – an attraction which, I believe, she is imagining, because the attraction that was between us while we were together was not nearly as developed as the attraction that formed during our numerous online conversations. The proximity that we experienced, which Wallace defines as the sense of familiarity created by the frequency of online intersection, formed the basis for our newly developed attraction. I think it is interesting how we tend to believe that stronger bonds exist with others when in reality, they probably weren’t that strong to begin with. This is especially true, I believe, in the case of attraction, because our mind tends to go over the interactions we have with others and forms something that seems like nostalgia. Our mind ruminates and re-mixes the conversations like they were from a dream and places more importance in the relationship than it merits, and we thereby form an attraction for someone that probably wouldn’t exist if we were in continuous F2F conversation with that person, without the chance to mull over our interactions. Zajonc (1980) has a point when he says that “familiarity breeds attraction” especially in the context of online attraction and proximity.
Throughout the summer and during the next school year, we frequently exchanged messages with each other through IM and Facebook. She had told me that a few weeks before the school year ended, that she had a nasty fight with her boyfriend and they had broken up. She seemed to turn to me for consolation and I tried to give her the most encouraging and uplifting messages I could that the lean media types would allow me. We seemed to be getting closer and closer to each other the more frequently we shared our experiences with each other, especially since we were both transfers students to new universities. We shared what Wallace (1999) and Clark (1996) describe as “common ground,” which is the formation of attraction between two people based on mutually shared experiences or beliefs and the proportion of shared attitudes between each other. We could each relate to our shared sense of loneliness and anxiety associated with starting out in a new environment in which you don’t know many people initially. Also, since we were using mostly lean media, it was easy for us to manipulate the proportion of shared attitudes and beliefs we had between each other – not for the sake of manipulation, but to strengthen the supportive bond we had formed between each other.
The more frequently Emily and I had interacted with each other online, the closer we became, it seemed. I had sensed that an attraction between us was beginning to form – especially through our increasing underlying use of innuendo and double-talk in our IM/Facebook conversations. When her birthday came up, I had e-mailed her a song by G. Love & Special Sauce that was titled with her name, and at this point, as we were talking over IM, she became completely disinhibited (in which Joinson (2001) notes that CMC in general has high levels of disinhibition effects, such as self-disclosure, which is certainly true here) and confessed how much she regrets not having acted on her attraction while we were going to school together – an attraction which, I believe, she is imagining, because the attraction that was between us while we were together was not nearly as developed as the attraction that formed during our numerous online conversations. The proximity that we experienced, which Wallace defines as the sense of familiarity created by the frequency of online intersection, formed the basis for our newly developed attraction. I think it is interesting how we tend to believe that stronger bonds exist with others when in reality, they probably weren’t that strong to begin with. This is especially true, I believe, in the case of attraction, because our mind tends to go over the interactions we have with others and forms something that seems like nostalgia. Our mind ruminates and re-mixes the conversations like they were from a dream and places more importance in the relationship than it merits, and we thereby form an attraction for someone that probably wouldn’t exist if we were in continuous F2F conversation with that person, without the chance to mull over our interactions. Zajonc (1980) has a point when he says that “familiarity breeds attraction” especially in the context of online attraction and proximity.
5.1 My Story
To start off, I will list the four Wallace attraction factors: physical attraction, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition effect. They play critical roles in online relationships.
Well I can’t really call this one a relationship, at least not that kind, but for convenience purposes, I will just call it a relationship (there are many types of relationships after all). I know this girl, E, from my high school Science Team. She was the captain before she graduated. I have to admit that she is the most beautiful girl I have ever met (but I have never told her how I feel about her).
I talked to her a few times (my tongue was completely tied up as expected), but I did manage to elicit some laughter. Then I talked to her about club related things via email. And eventually, we talked about more non-club related things. We became friends. After she graduated, we stayed in touch via email (she commented that I’m about the only one from high school she still keeps in touch with). And we talked on AIM after I finally installed AIM (I am really old fashioned).
So I guess this relationship started from FtF and continued on CMC. And since I really got to know her during our conversations through CMC, this is a case of physical attraction preceding the establishment of common ground. According to Wallace, in FtF situation, the people tend to meet others by looks then decide that want to get to know them. This is said to be (perhaps) the most important factor. And truth be told, I was attracted to her at first due to her appearance.
And after we talked more and more online, I found that we both like to ponder about philosophy. She had read many philosophical pieces while I had read virtually none in comparison -- I read about mythologies and philosopher quotes and try to test their essence with real life situations (reading is not my forte after all). In short, she really knows a lot of stuff, and epistemic evidence I noticed in our conversations shows that she is a very caring and understanding person. I really enjoy talking to her, and I respect her even more than before. I even put her Xanga site into my collection of good philosophy sites. Common ground refers to mutually shared beliefs, assumptions and propositions. We are attracted to people with whom we share a common ground, as shown in this case.
In conclusion, physical attraction created the initial link in this relationship, and common ground fortified it and made it long lasting.
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Well I can’t really call this one a relationship, at least not that kind, but for convenience purposes, I will just call it a relationship (there are many types of relationships after all). I know this girl, E, from my high school Science Team. She was the captain before she graduated. I have to admit that she is the most beautiful girl I have ever met (but I have never told her how I feel about her).
I talked to her a few times (my tongue was completely tied up as expected), but I did manage to elicit some laughter. Then I talked to her about club related things via email. And eventually, we talked about more non-club related things. We became friends. After she graduated, we stayed in touch via email (she commented that I’m about the only one from high school she still keeps in touch with). And we talked on AIM after I finally installed AIM (I am really old fashioned).
So I guess this relationship started from FtF and continued on CMC. And since I really got to know her during our conversations through CMC, this is a case of physical attraction preceding the establishment of common ground. According to Wallace, in FtF situation, the people tend to meet others by looks then decide that want to get to know them. This is said to be (perhaps) the most important factor. And truth be told, I was attracted to her at first due to her appearance.
And after we talked more and more online, I found that we both like to ponder about philosophy. She had read many philosophical pieces while I had read virtually none in comparison -- I read about mythologies and philosopher quotes and try to test their essence with real life situations (reading is not my forte after all). In short, she really knows a lot of stuff, and epistemic evidence I noticed in our conversations shows that she is a very caring and understanding person. I really enjoy talking to her, and I respect her even more than before. I even put her Xanga site into my collection of good philosophy sites. Common ground refers to mutually shared beliefs, assumptions and propositions. We are attracted to people with whom we share a common ground, as shown in this case.
In conclusion, physical attraction created the initial link in this relationship, and common ground fortified it and made it long lasting.
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5 (1): Now that I don't see you, we can be better friends
When I went away to college a lot of the relationships I had with people back home changed. I’d been lucky enough that no one I was that close to had moved away when I was a kid, so before I left for school I’d never really had to deal with having a relationship shift from an everyday, face-to-face thing to a distant, CMC and phone relationship. One relationship that was particularly difficult for me to adjust to was with my best friend Emily, who goes to the college in Illinois. Since high school, our relationship has changed a lot, but mostly for the better. During our freshmen year in college, we talked on the phone, on AIM, and through Facebook. I evaluated our relationship through two of McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors of which there are five: identifiability, removal of gating features, interactional control, connecting to similar others, and getting the goods. Two factors that played a significant role in my continuing friendship with Emily were removal of gating features and interactional control.
In FtF, gating features limit conversation because factors such as physical attractiveness, shyness and social anxiety inhibit people’s abilities to interact with others. However, in CMC these gates no longer exist. Because we could no longer see each other when we talked, a number of visual cues were removed from our interactions. We could not see each other’s physical features or responses. There was a removal of gating features because we could tell each other things that we may have been too embarrassed or shy to say in person. Because we had a greater level of visual anonymity (obviously we were not even close to completely visually anonymous because we had still seen each other everyday for 4 years), we each had increased private self-awareness, and decreased public self-awareness, meaning we that I thought less about how others viewed me, and more about my own thoughts about myself. Emily and I actually became closer by being physically far away from each other because of how the removal of visual and physical social situation gating features facilitated increased self-disclosure.
Another factor that influenced our relationship was interactional control. Interactional control allowed us to choose the channel of communication over which we had the most control in a certain situation and selectively self-present ourselves in a more positive light. That medium, depending on the content of the message, was a Facebook message, an IM, a text message, or a phone call. If I was in a good mood, I would call her so I could better convey that through my voice or word choice. If I was stressed out or in a bad mood about something I didn’t feel like discussing, and didn’t want to show that, I would talk to her through IM or text messages. I think this probably helped our relationship because when I was in a more “volatile” mood, I could choose to keep it simple and text her things rather than talking to her in a synchronous medium that may have resulted in me saying things I would regret. I was selectively self-presented to exaggerate certain aspects of my personality, which is in line with the hyperpersonal model.
Overall, while the relationship between Emily and I has changed since we have gone to college, as most relationships have that I have with people from back home, McKenna's relationship factors of removal of gating factors and interactional control have facilitated a better friendship between us.
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5.1 - Relationship Development over CMC
I started dating my ex-girlfriend, Liz, in my senior year of high school and we continued dating until halfway through my junior year. I went to Cornell and she stayed in Boston, attending Northeastern University which puts about 6 hours between us, except by bus it is really 10 hours. We utilized CMC greatly to stay in touch while we were away at different schools. Our relationship was a great example of two of McKenna's relationship facilitation factors.
Identifiability - McKenna's theory of identifiability is that when two people are communicating online or in another space where they are much more anonymous, there is a lot more self-disclosure. This increased level of self-disclosure promotes relationship development and thus a relationship is more likely to evolve. In my relationship, even though I knew Liz because she went to the same school as me, we didn't have a lot of time to talk in person due do busy schedules, so we were forced to talk online while doing homework. Both of us are generally shy people, but the anonymity provided by the computers helped us develop our relationship because we felt more comfortable disclosing information to each other. We became very good friends thanks to our conversations online and the fact that we were able to talk openly to each other. While we were away at separate schools, we were able to continue talking openly through online communication.
Connecting to Similar Others - Another part of McKenna's theory is that it is easy to detect and connect with other people who share similar interests. Before I started dating Liz, while we were still getting to know each other, I was able to tell that we had a lot in common. Because we were talking online and we didn't know each other very well, we mostly talked about what we were interested in, such as classes, sports, and other activities, which helped me identify with Liz.
My relationship with Liz is a great example of how it is possible to develop a strong connection with someone online. We initially developed our connections through the computer and further developed our relationship in person.
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Identifiability - McKenna's theory of identifiability is that when two people are communicating online or in another space where they are much more anonymous, there is a lot more self-disclosure. This increased level of self-disclosure promotes relationship development and thus a relationship is more likely to evolve. In my relationship, even though I knew Liz because she went to the same school as me, we didn't have a lot of time to talk in person due do busy schedules, so we were forced to talk online while doing homework. Both of us are generally shy people, but the anonymity provided by the computers helped us develop our relationship because we felt more comfortable disclosing information to each other. We became very good friends thanks to our conversations online and the fact that we were able to talk openly to each other. While we were away at separate schools, we were able to continue talking openly through online communication.
Connecting to Similar Others - Another part of McKenna's theory is that it is easy to detect and connect with other people who share similar interests. Before I started dating Liz, while we were still getting to know each other, I was able to tell that we had a lot in common. Because we were talking online and we didn't know each other very well, we mostly talked about what we were interested in, such as classes, sports, and other activities, which helped me identify with Liz.
My relationship with Liz is a great example of how it is possible to develop a strong connection with someone online. We initially developed our connections through the computer and further developed our relationship in person.
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5: Quiet on the Set! (Joe Strandberg)
Bush debates Kerry, insult-style. Southerners go up north and have a comedic culture clash with a Northerner. One guy finds friendship—and more--at Applebee’s. What do all of these have in common? They were all short movies I made with one group of close family friends. Although I only “see” these “actors” once a year, CMC helps facilitate manageable relationships with them, both “professional” and as good friends of the family. McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors have played an integral part to both pre-production and post-production as we produce one short movie per year at each “reunion.” This long-distance relationship required both connecting to similar others and removal of gating features for a smooth operation. Connecting to similar others is when CMC makes it easier to communicate with people who have similar interests, no matter where they are physically. Through social networking and instant messaging, we discovered some common ground: we all enjoyed acting and producing movies, mostly through improvising topics the coming weeks (and even the day of!) before our big production. Eventually we could comfortably talk about our past movies together, other movies I have made, and about “the next big day” of production fun. After the most recent movie was made this past August, CMC (especially IM and Facebook) helped me to keep in touch with all our friends, whether they were in college, in their first job, or still in grade school because we could all engage in a synchronous chat or asynchronous “bouncing” of ideas with each other. CMC also helped me to send out a pre-release of the movie to each actor and elicit their textual feedback. Connecting to similar others through common ground, social networking, and across time and space has helped me to maintain a good relationship with “the acting family.”
Removal of gating features states that gates such as physical attractiveness, cues like race or disability, and shyness or social anxiety are either removed or made less apparent in computer-mediated communication. A few of the younger (under 12) family members who were too young to participate in previous movies were reticent to “give it a try” this time. With the gating features of their age and potential shyness removed, they could freely suggest ideas and give feedback about our past movies and make plot suggestions for our most recent one. Eventually I helped persuade them to assume an identity and refine their character and the plot as actors this time around. Since they were so far away from me, the CMC environment was good for talking and sharing user-generated media with them, as we criticized my production and maintained our long-distance relationship.
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5: Online Fairy Tale
Online relationships generally seem to get a bad rap. As we’ve learned this semester, it’s not hard to lie about your interests, hobbies, age, and even gender in computer-mediated communication. From CFO to Media Richness Theory to O’Sullivan’s theory there are many reasons why online relationships should fail. However, there are people who have found true love through CMC. Suzie Robinson shares,
“I met my fiancé online and we are getting married in May this year. We only ever seem to hear the negative stories about online dating, giving the impression that its dangerous. I think we need to hear the success stories, too.”
Suzie looked around before deciding which online dating agency to join. Ultimately she picked one that required a few details about age, hobbies, what kind of relationship she was interested in, and pictures. Suzie recalls getting numerous messages from guys and e-mailing ones she was interested in. Eventually she saw a picture of Andy (her fiancé) and decided to go on a date with him. Suzie follows the chain presented in class last Thursday (photo assessment, survey of attributes, contact, and so on).
McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors agree somewhat with Suzie and her fiancé’s relationship. There was identifiability in that they were subject to self-disclosure, which led to a relationship. Gating features such as social awkwardness were removed, and interactional control was involved in that they could choose who to and when to respond. As far as common ground, Suzie said she only responded to those messages who she was interested in. Lastly, getting the goods, is not mentioned, but it would be entirely possible for any user to get information on users using outside sources.
As far as deception goes, there are many self-presentation goals that one attempts. Suzie doesn’t mention deception in her story but it is likely that she and her fiancé attempted to appear attractive and honest. Therefore, they may have lied frequently but subtly so that they would not be able to tell a difference when they met in person. Also, depending on how long they thought the relationship they may have acted differently. For example, Suzie comments that Andy didn’t fall for her on the first date, which may have affected his amount and depth of self-disclosure.
Link to Article
“I met my fiancé online and we are getting married in May this year. We only ever seem to hear the negative stories about online dating, giving the impression that its dangerous. I think we need to hear the success stories, too.”
Suzie looked around before deciding which online dating agency to join. Ultimately she picked one that required a few details about age, hobbies, what kind of relationship she was interested in, and pictures. Suzie recalls getting numerous messages from guys and e-mailing ones she was interested in. Eventually she saw a picture of Andy (her fiancé) and decided to go on a date with him. Suzie follows the chain presented in class last Thursday (photo assessment, survey of attributes, contact, and so on).
McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors agree somewhat with Suzie and her fiancé’s relationship. There was identifiability in that they were subject to self-disclosure, which led to a relationship. Gating features such as social awkwardness were removed, and interactional control was involved in that they could choose who to and when to respond. As far as common ground, Suzie said she only responded to those messages who she was interested in. Lastly, getting the goods, is not mentioned, but it would be entirely possible for any user to get information on users using outside sources.
As far as deception goes, there are many self-presentation goals that one attempts. Suzie doesn’t mention deception in her story but it is likely that she and her fiancé attempted to appear attractive and honest. Therefore, they may have lied frequently but subtly so that they would not be able to tell a difference when they met in person. Also, depending on how long they thought the relationship they may have acted differently. For example, Suzie comments that Andy didn’t fall for her on the first date, which may have affected his amount and depth of self-disclosure.
Link to Article
Blog 5 Option 1: Long Distance Dating
I was involved in a long distance relationship for two years. Because the actual physical distance between my boyfriend and I was rather large (I was in Florida and he was here in New York at Cornell) we r often relied on mediated communication to sustain our relationship.
There are numerous theories and studies done on relationship formation via mediated communication. Wallace suggests that there are 5 major factors that can either assist in building or hinder attraction in relationships. The five factors that she lists are: physical attractiveness, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition effects. The two that I found most interesting and noteworthy to apply to my example were physical attractiveness and proximity.
The principal of physical attractiveness is one of the most important variables that will increase/decrease attraction in real life. In fact in face to face meetings people make first judgments on looks, and the then the desire to become acquainted with someone comes secondary. However this principal is uniquely reversed when it comes to text/ voice based mediated communication. When there is a lack of visual stimulation we are forced to get to know someone first and then based on what we learn we may be more apt to find the individual attractive at a later time. As Wallace eloquently states, “perhaps just for this fleeting moment in history, beauty’s power is restrained.” In my situation, I knew what my boyfriend looked like because we are from the same town and dated in high school, however there were months that went by at times where we did not see each other. I feel that because we focused on “getting to know each other,” through daily discussions about our activities, friends, classes, feelings, and concerns we created a breeding ground for further attraction. In fact I would confidently say that perhaps communicating my email, phone or IM may have given us the confidence to discuss really important topics that we may not have otherwise discussed. Consequently, the more we knew understood each other, I believe the more attracted we were to one another.
The second element that I believe helped develop attraction was proximity. Proximity is the notion that the come you come into contact with someone the more likely you are to be attracted to them. In the online world Wallace gives the example of players of MUD’s or participate in chat rooms who happen be on routinely at the same times are more likely to develop a relationship with one another. In my situation, my boyfriend and I would often be on IM at the same time or call each other around the same time each night. At certain times we expected to hear/see from each other through various mediated forms- in a way it became routine. And of course the more frequently we interacted, the more interest and attraction built. This concept of “running into each other online” which I and many others experience, is called intersection frequency by Wallace. Additionally, I feel that because there was always the idea of anticipated future interaction between us, which affected the amount and way we interacted.
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/51-my-story.html#comments
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-bridezillas-by-mail.html#comments
There are numerous theories and studies done on relationship formation via mediated communication. Wallace suggests that there are 5 major factors that can either assist in building or hinder attraction in relationships. The five factors that she lists are: physical attractiveness, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition effects. The two that I found most interesting and noteworthy to apply to my example were physical attractiveness and proximity.
The principal of physical attractiveness is one of the most important variables that will increase/decrease attraction in real life. In fact in face to face meetings people make first judgments on looks, and the then the desire to become acquainted with someone comes secondary. However this principal is uniquely reversed when it comes to text/ voice based mediated communication. When there is a lack of visual stimulation we are forced to get to know someone first and then based on what we learn we may be more apt to find the individual attractive at a later time. As Wallace eloquently states, “perhaps just for this fleeting moment in history, beauty’s power is restrained.” In my situation, I knew what my boyfriend looked like because we are from the same town and dated in high school, however there were months that went by at times where we did not see each other. I feel that because we focused on “getting to know each other,” through daily discussions about our activities, friends, classes, feelings, and concerns we created a breeding ground for further attraction. In fact I would confidently say that perhaps communicating my email, phone or IM may have given us the confidence to discuss really important topics that we may not have otherwise discussed. Consequently, the more we knew understood each other, I believe the more attracted we were to one another.
The second element that I believe helped develop attraction was proximity. Proximity is the notion that the come you come into contact with someone the more likely you are to be attracted to them. In the online world Wallace gives the example of players of MUD’s or participate in chat rooms who happen be on routinely at the same times are more likely to develop a relationship with one another. In my situation, my boyfriend and I would often be on IM at the same time or call each other around the same time each night. At certain times we expected to hear/see from each other through various mediated forms- in a way it became routine. And of course the more frequently we interacted, the more interest and attraction built. This concept of “running into each other online” which I and many others experience, is called intersection frequency by Wallace. Additionally, I feel that because there was always the idea of anticipated future interaction between us, which affected the amount and way we interacted.
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/51-my-story.html#comments
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-bridezillas-by-mail.html#comments
Monday, September 24, 2007
5:2- Fate Reunites Soul-Mates <3
A discouraged Sheryl had been on the dating site eHarmony.com for nearly two months with no leads. This all changed when Shawn, a personality match, attempted to contact her. Shawn did not display a picture, but after an initial interaction and having noted Shawn’s current residence was in the same town as her alma mater, she whipped out her college yearbook to find if this guy went to school the same time as her, and if so, “get the goods” by seeing what he looked like. As she turned to the page with his picture on it, she realized that not only did Shawn and she go to school at the same time, but she distantly knew him, as they were both residential advisors and his sister lived in her dorm!
Their mutual college, activities, and acquaintances allowed them to identify with each other, as well as find some common ground and similar interests, which allowed them to connect over space and time (as Sheryl had graduated 8 years ago and had since moved hours away). Since Shawn did not display a picture and Sheryl only looked him up after their first interaction, this encounter aligns with the idea that although in traditional face-to-face relationships, one first is physically attracted to someone, and then gets to know him/her, in Computer-Mediated Communication, this process is reversed whereby you first judge someone based on their personality and, only after being satisfied on this front, see his/her appearance.
Sheryl and Shawn eventually spoke on the phone, met in person and fell in love. Shawn even moved closer to Sheryl so that he could see her more often. Since this relationship gradually progressed from usage of lean media (online, phone, face-to-face) to rich media. This suggests that it is easier to get to know someone online due to increased disinhibition and further physical distance (decreased proximity), which promotes self-disclosure. However, as a relationship deepens, richer media allow for a richer experience and deeper appreciation of one another. Sheryl noted that even on the phone, she was “captivated by his voice,” a quality she could not have picked up from his profile. She also admits, “we could not imagine how we had missed out on connecting with one another when our paths had crossed so many times during our years on the same campus.” These soul mates had the opportunity to meet and fall in love face to face, but for one reason or another, hadn’t.
Only through online communication did the two of them feel safe enough in their visual anonymity and physical distance to increase their self-awareness, and thus, self-disclosure, thereby deepening their relationship. Evidently this online medium can be a useful tool as it reduces gating features such as physical attractiveness, social anxiety, and shyness.
With regard to digital deception, it doesn’t seem as if there was any in this case. Rather than lie about physical qualities, as is common among men (regarding height) and women (regarding age and weight), Shawn and Sheryl seemed to not disclose such information immediately. The lack of pictures prevented the evaluation of assessment signals such as weight, gender, and other characteristics that are costly to display. The lack of deception contributed to the success of the relationship. This is in line with Ellison’s theory that the anticipated future interaction of these individuals who were looking for long-term, meaningful relationships, resulted in more honest self disclosure.
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-bridezillas-by-mail.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-losing-connection.html
5! Growing Closer or Apart with High School Friends?
After I arrived at college, my interactions with close friends back at home changed drastically. While these relationships once consisted of daily face-to-face and telephone conversations, they now have been relegated to the world of AOL Instant Messaging and Facebook.
For this exercise, I am going to analyze my relationship with one of my close high school friends. While we used to interact face-to-face on a daily basis in high school, we now talk online using AOL Instant Messenger or Facebook approximately once or twice per week. Wallace has outlined a series of four factors (physical attractiveness, proximity, common grounds, and disinhibiton), which relate to how we form and maintain relationships online. I am going to analyze this particular relationship using two of these four factors: disinhibition and proximity.
Disinhibition: Disinhibition refers to how willing we are to self-disclose in our relationship. If someone is very disinhibited, he would not be willing to reveal personal information. Wallace predicts that increased self-disclosure will lead to increased relationship development. According to Jonison (2001), online communication affords us the benefit of visual anonymity, which means that we are invisible to others (in most circumstances) while we communicate. This leads to both increased private self-awareness and decreased public self-awareness, resulting in increased self-disclosure.
I find Jonison’s predictions to be extremely relevant to my relationship with my friend in that we are much more personal online that in a face-to-face setting. When communicating via IM I have increased private self-awareness, which means I am able to sit in my room privately and therefore more seriously contemplate my thoughts. Because I am more aware of my inner self, I am able to disclose much more personal information to my friend. Furthermore, I have decreased public self-awareness, which means that I am less cognizant of how others (including my friend) view me from an outside perspective. Therefore, I feel less self-conscious and more willing to share my feelings and thoughts.
Proximity: Proximity refers to how frequently we are exposed to someone. Online this flows from intersectional frequency. Wallace’s prediction is that increased proximity will result in increased relationship development. I too find this to be relevant to the particular relationship about which I am writing. One reason that my friend and I have grown closer since coming to college is that we are both online on AIM very frequently. Therefore, we are constantly exposed to each other, resulting in familiarity and relationship development. In contrast, I have grown apart from friends who rarely come online, and I have found that I am less likely to IM them when they actually do. In contrast, because I see this particular friend’s screen name constantly on my buddy list, she is very familiar, and I am highly likely to IM her frequently
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-option-1-long-distance.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-5-option-1-long-distance-dating.html
For this exercise, I am going to analyze my relationship with one of my close high school friends. While we used to interact face-to-face on a daily basis in high school, we now talk online using AOL Instant Messenger or Facebook approximately once or twice per week. Wallace has outlined a series of four factors (physical attractiveness, proximity, common grounds, and disinhibiton), which relate to how we form and maintain relationships online. I am going to analyze this particular relationship using two of these four factors: disinhibition and proximity.
Disinhibition: Disinhibition refers to how willing we are to self-disclose in our relationship. If someone is very disinhibited, he would not be willing to reveal personal information. Wallace predicts that increased self-disclosure will lead to increased relationship development. According to Jonison (2001), online communication affords us the benefit of visual anonymity, which means that we are invisible to others (in most circumstances) while we communicate. This leads to both increased private self-awareness and decreased public self-awareness, resulting in increased self-disclosure.
I find Jonison’s predictions to be extremely relevant to my relationship with my friend in that we are much more personal online that in a face-to-face setting. When communicating via IM I have increased private self-awareness, which means I am able to sit in my room privately and therefore more seriously contemplate my thoughts. Because I am more aware of my inner self, I am able to disclose much more personal information to my friend. Furthermore, I have decreased public self-awareness, which means that I am less cognizant of how others (including my friend) view me from an outside perspective. Therefore, I feel less self-conscious and more willing to share my feelings and thoughts.
Proximity: Proximity refers to how frequently we are exposed to someone. Online this flows from intersectional frequency. Wallace’s prediction is that increased proximity will result in increased relationship development. I too find this to be relevant to the particular relationship about which I am writing. One reason that my friend and I have grown closer since coming to college is that we are both online on AIM very frequently. Therefore, we are constantly exposed to each other, resulting in familiarity and relationship development. In contrast, I have grown apart from friends who rarely come online, and I have found that I am less likely to IM them when they actually do. In contrast, because I see this particular friend’s screen name constantly on my buddy list, she is very familiar, and I am highly likely to IM her frequently
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-option-1-long-distance.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-5-option-1-long-distance-dating.html
5 | The Digital Oedipus
(Option 1) While some people have gone on “dates” with their mothers, they usually don’t extend beyond a casual family meeting for a movie or dinner. However, poor Daniel Anceneaux of Marseilles, France, in an unbelievable and rather disturbing coincidence went through half a year of online relationship with a lady whom he thought would be the girl of his dreams, but is in fact his mother.
Morality issues aside, this intriguing yet unnerving situation is an amazing example of the extent of online deception – imagine how ludicrously it would be if someone were to claim that you could not identify your mother even if you have been chatting with her for six months? Yet Daniel, known as “Prince of Pleasure” (only the French, of course) online, and his mother Nicole, or “Sweet Juliette,” conducted this affair without blatant suspicion from either side. Finally, they decided to have their first real life meeting on a beach where they realized, with great shock, of each other’s true identity. One can only imagine the traumatizing psychological effect on both when Sweet Juliette found her Prince Romeo to be quite closer and more familiar than she had expected.
The deception aspect of this relationship relied both on identity-based and message-based factors. Nicole, 52 years old in reality, presented herself as a young and attractive woman around Daniel’s age. In order to reinforce identity-based deception, she sent him a scanned photo of a younger girl from a magazine. Through their exchange, both sides used selective presentation to form an ideal image of themselves in each other’s mind. Nicole took on the disguise of a beautiful, young, and slender woman – the generally expected preferences of a man. Using a selective process to deliver cues, they managed to sustain an extended deception over the Internet. Their experience is highly supportive of the Social Distancing Theory. Nicole wished to remain as masked as possible, since she is very much straitlaced in real life, thus her online persona relied on the anonymous and distanced Internet communication to find amour. Daniel, eager to earn the love of a lady, fell for the lies and entrapped himself in a digital Oedipus complex.
Their development of a close relationship relies on at least one major component – that is, they already have had a relationship as mother and son. If we were to temporarily set aside the moral implications for a moment, we can even see why Daniel might be romantically interested in someone similar (or in this case, identical) to his mother – after all, they are more likely to have similar interests and personalities since they share much more of the same DNA than strangers and lived together in the same environment at one point. The physical attraction was affirmed when Nicole sent in a photo of another, selectively good-looking woman, and proximity was guaranteed since they both live in the same city and obviously have experienced the same surroundings. Perhaps they were surprised to find out that they both have memorable trips to the same places, and even shared some remarkably similar life stories, but given the sheer arbitrary quality of the Internet neither expected the other to be a family member. Again, the cumulative factors of kinship and environmental similarity probably led to a wide common ground as well – that is, they are likely to have shared many of the same assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs.
Very unfortunately for the two, they failed to achieve the fourth aspect of Wallace’s online relationship theory – disinhibition, until it was far too late. If either side had the courage or the sense to self-disclose more details (e.g. family circumstances, employment/marriage status, true names, etc) then the final embarrassing confrontation would have been avoided.
While Wallace’s theory fitted the situation reasonably well, McKenna’s theory does not fair so well. Identifiability, the idea that that anonymity or identifiable factors lead to more self-disclosure, is poorly supported in this case since both seemed to have lied to a significant degree even given the relatively long relationship. Removing of gating features, which claims that certain features such as physical attractiveness can lead to closer relationship, is a muddy subject since Nicole blatantly lied about her appearance. Interactional control, on the other hand, is fairly well supported as both side operated with heavy self-presentation. Connecting to similar others is on the same principle as Wallace’s common grounds and thus is supported by the case. Lastly, “getting the goods,” or obtaining information about the other person prior to meeting, was regrettably not possible (Nicole lied completely about herself) nor, I suspect, attempted.
Daniel and Nicole’s freakish circumstance serves as a nice warning to all the online daters seeking romance in a largely unregulated and unverified realm. While I do not recommend anyone in Daniel’s situation to gouge his eyes out or perform any other ridiculous self-mutilation, I hope that the digital-men would take care to verify that the digital-lady is truly whom she claims to be, and any might-be-Jocasta’s to refrain from rampant lying – in the end everyone gets hurt.
Story: http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20051209/113414040002.html
Also reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King
Comments
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-online-relationship-in-halcyon-days.html#comment-4380663697601414418
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-quiet-on-set-joe-strandberg.html#comment-4892628662379281496
5 Win a Date with a Professional Tennis Player
When I was a senior in high school, I met this guy named Marcel through a mutual friend. Marcel was a year older than me and looked like the soccer coach from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Needless to say, Marcel was extremely physically attractive. His level of physical attractiveness was what originally drew me to Marcel (I know, I know, but everyone can be a little shallow sometimes). He also seemed to be a really nice guy, so when he asked me out for a dinner date, I was thrilled. Soon after, we decided to be exclusive. A few weeks later, Marcel had to go back to
At first, this arrangement didn’t bother me at all. I mean, he promised that he would come home every three weeks or less to see me, and at first he did. It was great every time he was home. I enjoyed spending time with him, and when I couldn’t see him, I would speak to him on the phone almost every night of the week. Obviously, I preferred seeing him to speaking to him. There is always some level of reassurance as to why you care about a person and why you committed to them when you are physically with them.
Eventually, distance got the better of me and Marcel’s relationship and we stopped talking as frequently. He was always traveling. He used to be the one who called me all the time, but as time went on, I started calling him more. I missed him a lot and he was always preoccupied with tennis. To top it off, his trainer, Dale, was a real jerk. Whenever Marcel was working out or playing a game, Dale would pick up Marcel’s cell phone and rudely tell me to learn his training schedule, and hang up. Because Marcel was so far, Dale’s frequent hang-ups made Marcel seem that much farther away.
Marcel was scheduled to go on a tour of
Assignment 5: Option 1
The summer before I got to Cornell I was a camp counselor. At this camp I met a girl (one of my fellow counselors). I will refer to her as AA. We started going out and continued the relationship through the summer. When I got to Cornell, we tried to keep the relationship going even though she was at school in California. We would talk over AIM and call each other as much as possible. Unfortunately, she did not have a cell phone, which made things very difficult. Talking to her over AIM was much different from being home in that at home in addition to talking to her online I saw her almost every day at work. Since I did not see her at school, I would waste large amounts of time talking with her about nothing and it eventually made other aspects of my life suffer. It was like a poisson on my social life and academics. We started to grow apart rapidly and decided to call it off during thanksgiving break of freshman year.
Proximity was a large issue in our relationship. When we were together we saw each other every day. When we went to school our intersection frequency decreased and was limited to when we were online. Because she did not have a cell phone I did not talk to her on the phone very often and our conversations were almost completely limited to online. This was a large and rapid change from what we had during the summer. Without the real life proximity problems arose.
AA and I had a lot in common. Our personalities were very similar. We had the same taste in movies and music and we always had something to talk about. This common ground is what originally brought us together. Over AIM it is hard to keep a conversation going if the two people do not have anything in common. Even after we broke up we continued to talk. I am still good friends with AA. It was mutual when we broke it off so there were no hard feelings on either side and now that we are talking when we want to talk rather than talking just to talk every day, our conversations are usually a lot longer and more meaningful.
While McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors explained what brought us together, Wallace’s attraction factors explain what split us up. Although we had common ground, the relationship could not survive the lack of real life proximity.
Assign. 5 Opt. 1
I have a boyfriend whom I see only during the two summer months of June and August. The rest of the year he attends the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and I am here in Ithaca at Cornell. During the summer we reside together in New Jersey where we are both from and met during our high school years. Our relationship since then has become one in which we rely highly on technology to communicate with each other, especially the internet. William being a year older than I am, started dating me three weeks before he graduated from high school and then after a great summer together he went off to college and I remained at home for my senior year of high school. Since then we have remained together through the bumps and bruises of a long-distance relationship. Therefore, I feel like I have experienced a variation of an online relationship over the past two years with Will.
Will and I were both recruited by our respective schools to row on the varsity team. This is how we initially met in high school because we were on the same club team but did not attend the same high school. Additionally, we have similar religious views and come from families with similar economic status. We both come from 3 sibling families with a mother and a father and have been taught the same values for education and much more by our parents. Additionally we both go to Ivy League schools where we enjoy living active lifestyles in rowing and outside of our sport. We both share a portion of Dutch heritage in our blood and are often told that we "look cute" together with our similar features; including our blonde hair, blue eyes, tall height, and athletic body types. I could go on but I think you get the point.
All of these things that I mentioned and much more have been discussed over the years in depth between us mainly over the internet. Because of our busy schedules we do not have time to spend hours on the phone with each other but will often multi-task online and talk to each other through AIM (spontaneous) or through facebook. We share a lot of the same friends. The rowing community that we entered into, each on our own accord, in high school generated a lot of friends on other teams, other schools and the general competition was a small world where people got to know each other over time. Thus, we each know people that row for each others teams that we did not necessarily meet through our relationship together. From there we also, know each others team mates from visits and regattas. All of these intertwined shared relationships come together on the internet spaces especially on facebook. I know all of his good friends and can relate to him about them because we all row and visa-versa. On facebook we are in many of the same groups and on AIM we talk to many of the same people. My point being that we share a thing called common ground. This is a communications term is also known as the Law of Attraction. Will and I are clearly drawn to each other because of all of the interests, friends, ideas, and attitudes that we share together. Even though most of these times we do not converse about these things face to face the psychological spaces on the internet allow us to do so. In almost all psychological spaces that I access on a regular basis (AIM, facebook, and email) I almost always am communicating with him. Our common ground is most of the time expressed this way rather than FtF.
Another attraction factor that Wallace discusses other than the common ground factor is the physical attraction factor. This idea states that because people are less inclined to judge people by their appearance on the internet because they have less access to their others' looks that there is a better chance people will get to know each other on a personality and interests basis rather than a physical one to start out. Now I do realize that Will and I began our relationship offline however when we had to make the adjustment to an online relationship soon after we started dating I feel like we got to know each other in much different ways that completely removed the physical aspect and really forced us to look at each other on a deeper level. For example we quickly had to decide what we valued most in a relationship, physical contact versus intimate emotional communication because we were really going to be limited in our ability to see each other because of our busy school and sports schedules. After developing our intimate emotional communication relationship we realized from this that we really did want to stay together and sacrifice the FtF aspect of our relationship because we came across so many things that we loved about each other online where there was no physical aspect. Therefore, I definitely agree with Wallace's ideas on physical attraction being that online is very different in that it "pulls the rug out from under our tendency to rely on good looks in interpersonal attraction". (Wallace, 138)
Will and I were both recruited by our respective schools to row on the varsity team. This is how we initially met in high school because we were on the same club team but did not attend the same high school. Additionally, we have similar religious views and come from families with similar economic status. We both come from 3 sibling families with a mother and a father and have been taught the same values for education and much more by our parents. Additionally we both go to Ivy League schools where we enjoy living active lifestyles in rowing and outside of our sport. We both share a portion of Dutch heritage in our blood and are often told that we "look cute" together with our similar features; including our blonde hair, blue eyes, tall height, and athletic body types. I could go on but I think you get the point.
All of these things that I mentioned and much more have been discussed over the years in depth between us mainly over the internet. Because of our busy schedules we do not have time to spend hours on the phone with each other but will often multi-task online and talk to each other through AIM (spontaneous) or through facebook. We share a lot of the same friends. The rowing community that we entered into, each on our own accord, in high school generated a lot of friends on other teams, other schools and the general competition was a small world where people got to know each other over time. Thus, we each know people that row for each others teams that we did not necessarily meet through our relationship together. From there we also, know each others team mates from visits and regattas. All of these intertwined shared relationships come together on the internet spaces especially on facebook. I know all of his good friends and can relate to him about them because we all row and visa-versa. On facebook we are in many of the same groups and on AIM we talk to many of the same people. My point being that we share a thing called common ground. This is a communications term is also known as the Law of Attraction. Will and I are clearly drawn to each other because of all of the interests, friends, ideas, and attitudes that we share together. Even though most of these times we do not converse about these things face to face the psychological spaces on the internet allow us to do so. In almost all psychological spaces that I access on a regular basis (AIM, facebook, and email) I almost always am communicating with him. Our common ground is most of the time expressed this way rather than FtF.
Another attraction factor that Wallace discusses other than the common ground factor is the physical attraction factor. This idea states that because people are less inclined to judge people by their appearance on the internet because they have less access to their others' looks that there is a better chance people will get to know each other on a personality and interests basis rather than a physical one to start out. Now I do realize that Will and I began our relationship offline however when we had to make the adjustment to an online relationship soon after we started dating I feel like we got to know each other in much different ways that completely removed the physical aspect and really forced us to look at each other on a deeper level. For example we quickly had to decide what we valued most in a relationship, physical contact versus intimate emotional communication because we were really going to be limited in our ability to see each other because of our busy school and sports schedules. After developing our intimate emotional communication relationship we realized from this that we really did want to stay together and sacrifice the FtF aspect of our relationship because we came across so many things that we loved about each other online where there was no physical aspect. Therefore, I definitely agree with Wallace's ideas on physical attraction being that online is very different in that it "pulls the rug out from under our tendency to rely on good looks in interpersonal attraction". (Wallace, 138)
5 A Deceptive Online Relationship made possible by the internet
The anonymity of the internet creates an environment in which deception is very common. This can potentially lead to problems and harm (both mental and physical), especially when an online relationship is formed. Thomas Montgomery’s murder case illustrates a very extreme example of this. (Yes, this is the Wired article that Professor Hancock described in class and posted a link on Blackboard, but he did this without my permission—I was the one who showed him the article.) Since most of you probably already know about this article, I will give a very brief description and analyze the factors that contributed to the online deception, initial attraction, and relationship development.
Thomas Montgomery, a 45-year-old, pretends to be “Tommy,” an 18-year-old. Tommy meets, falls in love, and proposes to “Jessi,” a 17-year-old girl. Jessi accepts this proposal. Montgomery promises to leave his real life family in order to become an 18-year-old. Montgomery’s wife, Cindy, finds out about this relationship. Cindy tells Jessi. Jessi is sad that Tommy is not real. Montgomery gets his friend, Brian, to convince Jessi that he is a good guy and that they still should be friends. Jessi gets into a relationship with Brian. Montgomery is jealous. Montgomery kills Brian. Jessi turns out to be Mary. Mary is the mother of the real Jessi.
As you can see, deception and online relationships can be so intense that it leads to very irrational behavior—Montgomery kills his own friend because he believes that he could become an 18-year-old boy, who will marry a young girl. Mary sends revealing pictures of her own daughter in order to satisfy a boy, and after finding out about the deception, she also continues to have a relationship with this 45-year-old, while still pretending to be her own daughter.
The amount of deception in this relationship is unbelievable—both the people in this online relationship managed to keep their identity concealed for months. Deception occurred in both forms: identity-based and message-based deception. Identity based deception was made possible for such an elongated period of time because there was virtually no assessment signals. Since these two never met in person, they had no idea what each other looked like; they were able to manipulate “traditional assessment signals” such as physical appearance by sending photos of other people. Message based deception was also exhibited in this relationship, since both Montgomery and Mary gave false information in all their conversations.
Wallace’s attraction factors were very prominent in the beginning of this online relationship. These factors explain why these two were so drawn to each other in the first place:
"He tried to explain what drew him to his computer. 'When I'm talking to Cindy or you like this, face-to-face,' he said, 'it's hard for me to say what I feel.' As Tommy, however, the words came easily. And then there was Jessi."
This is the perfect example of disinhibition. Disinhibition is the idea that people often feel more comfortable and compelled to self-disclose information that would not normally come up in face-to-face conversations. Disinhibtion was the main cause of Montgomery’s deceptive behavior. Proximity also played a large role in their attraction—because Tommy and Jessi crossed paths so many times in Pogo and Yahoo games, they were more drawn to each other. There was a certain point in their IM’s, where Montgomery calls Jessi a liar because she said that she would quit playing these games. It was obvious that they were constantly playing these games and knew that they would never stop. This also leads to factor of “common ground.” Both Montgomery and Mary shared a common interest in playing these games and meeting younger people. They were also attracted to each other because of physical attraction (to the pictures). Because this is a CMC environment they were able to get to know each other first before getting to see each other’s pictures.
Wallace’s attraction factors explained the attraction of these people, but this does not explain how this online relationship escalated to be a murder case. McKenna’s relationship facilitation factor’s does, however. From the previous quote, Montgomery said that he was able to self-disclose more information about his feelings because of the anonymity of the internet. This related to McKenna’s idea of identifiability, and more specifically the “stranger on the train effect.” Because Montgomery felt that his private self-awareness was very high, which led him to self-disclose more. Self-disclosure in any form is essential in relationship development, even if the information was deceptive.
Another interesting thing about the quote above is that Montgomery specifically said that he wanted to express what he feels. Going back to deception in the CMC environment, the feature-based model gives data to support that people choose to lie about their feelings the most through AIM. Because Montgomery’s relationship was based on deception, he wanted to lie about his feelings the most. This is probably why most of their interactions were through AIM and phone; Montgomery chose to use AIM to lie about his feelings more. He also used the phone to interact with Jessi because bother AIM and the phone give distanced from Jessi. This is all relates to McKenna’s idea of interactional control.
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-second-life-love.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-intriguing-new-friend.html
5: Nothing Like Family
My brother, Scott, and I have always been very close. We're only 15 months apart in age so we have always shared similar interests. Two years ago, my brother moved away to school in Pennsylvania, about 5 1/2 hours from home, and last year I moved away. Both of us were very busy with school and sports so couldn't pick up the phone and talk to each other as much as we would like. Fortunately for us, we found a different aletrnative. We began sending emails to each other about 4 or 5 times a week and would talk on AIM or MSN messenger if we were both online doing homework. When he lived at home the two of us would never use CMC to interact, so this was definitely a change for both of us. Oddly enough, our relationship in certain ways improved and we have begun sharing a closer bond than ever before. Online, he was able to open up (although he would never admit it to his friends) and express himself in ways he had never done before. This example can relate perfectly to two of Wallace's attraction factors.
Common Ground - Wallace states that common ground is a huge factor in online attraction. In other words, you tend to be more attracted to those who share the same beliefs, assumptions and presuppositions as you. Scott and I have always had quite a bit in common, but it really wasn't until these past two years that we truly realized just how similar our beliefs and interests were. We would talk about every NHL team, their success and their players. We both followed hockey very closely and would look forward to talking about the games mostly through email. It also wasn't until the past 2 years that we realized how similar our music interest was. We would tell each other to download a specific song and the other would most likely already have it on their computer under 'Favourites". Scott and I would talk about classes, movies, TV shows and pretty much anything you could name. The more we talked about our specific interests and beliefs, the closer we became. I had never really spent that much time listening to his music, or talking to him about movies, but through email and AIM, we realized just how much we shared the same interests and beliefs in almost everything. We became closer as a result.
Disinhibtion - Wallace states that the increase in self-disclosure results in higher online attraction. My brother and I had never been ones to share too much emotion with each other. We preferred to laugh, joke around and kick around a soccer ball rather than open up and express feelings. Once he moved away, I realized how much I missed him and how I never really tell him how much he means to me. It was much easier for me to open up through CMC than in person, and he found it the same. We would talk about stresses with school and sports, and how juggling the two was very tough. Since he moved away from home first, I would talk to him whenever I missed home and he helped me adapt to living on my own. He expressed how much he missed home when he first went to school, which he of course would never have admitted in person. Whenever he had girlfriend trouble he would turn to me for advice - something he had never done in the past. We were opening up to each other about personal information in a way in which we had never done before. We became much closer and confided in each other more than ever before.
At first I thought the fact that my brother and I barely had time to call each other once a week would affect our relationship negatively. In fact, because of CMC, and our constant access to the computer, our relationship grew and became stronger than ever. We got to know different aspects of each other that we had never seen before and took our relationship to a new level. The online connection that we share is now transferring into our FtF interactions and we are able to open up more and more to each other. CMC allowed me to discover different aspects of my brother which is a key factor in why we are so close today.
Common Ground - Wallace states that common ground is a huge factor in online attraction. In other words, you tend to be more attracted to those who share the same beliefs, assumptions and presuppositions as you. Scott and I have always had quite a bit in common, but it really wasn't until these past two years that we truly realized just how similar our beliefs and interests were. We would talk about every NHL team, their success and their players. We both followed hockey very closely and would look forward to talking about the games mostly through email. It also wasn't until the past 2 years that we realized how similar our music interest was. We would tell each other to download a specific song and the other would most likely already have it on their computer under 'Favourites". Scott and I would talk about classes, movies, TV shows and pretty much anything you could name. The more we talked about our specific interests and beliefs, the closer we became. I had never really spent that much time listening to his music, or talking to him about movies, but through email and AIM, we realized just how much we shared the same interests and beliefs in almost everything. We became closer as a result.
Disinhibtion - Wallace states that the increase in self-disclosure results in higher online attraction. My brother and I had never been ones to share too much emotion with each other. We preferred to laugh, joke around and kick around a soccer ball rather than open up and express feelings. Once he moved away, I realized how much I missed him and how I never really tell him how much he means to me. It was much easier for me to open up through CMC than in person, and he found it the same. We would talk about stresses with school and sports, and how juggling the two was very tough. Since he moved away from home first, I would talk to him whenever I missed home and he helped me adapt to living on my own. He expressed how much he missed home when he first went to school, which he of course would never have admitted in person. Whenever he had girlfriend trouble he would turn to me for advice - something he had never done in the past. We were opening up to each other about personal information in a way in which we had never done before. We became much closer and confided in each other more than ever before.
At first I thought the fact that my brother and I barely had time to call each other once a week would affect our relationship negatively. In fact, because of CMC, and our constant access to the computer, our relationship grew and became stronger than ever. We got to know different aspects of each other that we had never seen before and took our relationship to a new level. The online connection that we share is now transferring into our FtF interactions and we are able to open up more and more to each other. CMC allowed me to discover different aspects of my brother which is a key factor in why we are so close today.
5: I <3 U... Long distance relationships
My boyfriend (Dave) and I met in June of 2004 at a graduation party for one of our mutual friends. He went to a neighboring high-school and was obviously headed for a different college. Despite my initial doubts about the feasibility, we really hit it off and have been in a long-distance relationship since I came to Cornell. This seemed like the perfect example to use with relationship formation, although we did meet in real life initially, we then talked a lot using IM and the phone of course, especially once we left for school.
I decided that the Wallace attraction factors applied more to our relationship than the McKenna Relationship facilitation factors. The first of Wallace’s factors I chose is Proximity. Wallace argues that familiarity leads to attraction. In the FtF world, this means that being in the same location where you see each other a lot leads to familiarity and subsequent increased attraction. I had actually seen him at parties before but never had a real conversation. Perhaps this made him more attractive when we finally did have an engaging conversation. In online spaces, proximity can mean simply frequency of interaction, such as when you and a certain person frequent the same chat room or blog and get to ‘know’ each other. Once I had his screen name, it was easy to interact frequently using Instant Messenger. Since we inevitably spent a lot of time apart, we could interact through IM and be proximate in the online sense if not in the same physical location at the same time.
Wallace also describes Disinhibition effects in online attraction. This refers to the effect in which people are their more extreme selves online. Perhaps they are less afraid to show who they are since there seem to be fewer repercussions, this fits in with the Hyperpersonal Model of more extreme impressions and personalities formed online. I was initially fairly shy talking to Dave, and of course I wanted to make and maintain a good impression. We said goodbye after the party without exchanging numbers, however one of my friends had his screen name, so I decided to IM him. I am not sure I would have had the confidence to call him the next day even if I had known his number. It was easier for me to be the one to “put myself out there” and disclose more information about myself and vice versa in the medium of IM. We went on dates throughout the summer but both probably revealed the most personal information about ourselves online. I think Disinhibition played a role in these choices, and so does the fact that the act of IMing has a different, more relaxed connotation than calling. Additionally, selective self presentation could have played a role, since as we shared our interests etc. with each other we could both think more about what we said, while avoiding any awkward pauses in conversation. Throughout the summer we began talking on the phone more and more and that became our preferred media, since it seems easier to feel an emotional connection and is more comforting to hear the other persons voice, once we were separated at our different colleges.
5 Sleep with me...I mean my boss
Bram, Jakson, and Lorenzo; what do these three guys have in common? They are all the same person! Bram Kendall Henderson, 37, married and father of two, pretended to be Jakson Dunn, 17, and Lorenzo (a friend of Dunn’s).
This story is almost as twisted as the “Tommy, Jessi, and Montgomery” case, expect this one doesn’t end in a death (rather a six-year prison sentence for participating in an indecent act with a minor and producing and possessing child pornography).
In terms of this relationship, both Wallace and McKenna’s factors apply. Wallace’s online attraction factors include physical attractiveness, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition. In CMC, attraction is reversed – you get to know the person, then they become attractive to you. In this case, the girl got to know Dunn (
This online relationship was very complex with intricate details to keep
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Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-option-2-twisted-online.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-i-3-u-long-distance-relationships.html
Assignment 5: Option 1
I consider a person I have never met to be one of my best friends. We’re Facebook friends and AIM Buddies. We share stories, pictures, and drunk dials. We’ve even been known to send one another a birthday or Christmas gift, yet we’ve never seen each other face to face.
Our friendship evolved out of a browser based MUD and very slowly at first. We were members of different but friendly guilds, so while we knew of each other we never spoke much. It is interesting to consider this aspect in terms of Wallace’s attraction factor of proximity which states that people are more attracted to one another the more often their paths cross. While we were miles away we would visit the same world on almost a daily basis, providing key opportunities to connect. Even then, we ran in different circles and while the opportunities were present they were rarely taken.
I can’t recall when it was we began really talking, but I remember a few messages back and forth via in game chat before moving our conversations to AIM. We spoke at length about common interests in music, health, fashion, hobbies, and art (common ground be another of Wallace’s attraction factors but not a focus here). I had made it a point to rarely disclose my picture nor ask an online friend for a picture to keep some distance between my “real-world” life and my life online. This was also to protect myself from negative perceptions of online friends, as I found all too often I lost interest in friendships when I found a buddy to be less than physically desirable. And, so it was with this precept that our friendship began to grow via AIM conversations.
Again, at a point lost on me, we finally chose to exchange pictures or one or the other of us had caught a glimpse of the other’s picture posted on some private forum or server dedicated to the game’s fan base. It was soon apparent that the attraction we had for one another based on common ground and proximity factors was quite enhanced by mutual physical attraction revealed by seeing each other’s photos (frankly she’s a looker and I will modestly say I’m not an ogre myself). Although, it's not unheard of to meet an attractive person in an online game, it was unexpected, especially by me.
While face to face relationships begin with physical awareness first and are found to furthered and solidified by proximity and common ground, ours began the other way around. The importance here is that although our relationship had evolved based upon personality characteristics to begin with, once the physical element was revealed our friendship really began to expand away from the game to other mediums of communication and more personal topics of conversation like family, friends, and love lives. In fact, considering other friendships I have made in that game, this was the only one that had ever stepped further into which I had felt comfortable sharing personal information and using other forms of communication. One could say my shallowness for good looks carries over to the online world, where they really shouldn’t matter.
Our friendship evolved out of a browser based MUD and very slowly at first. We were members of different but friendly guilds, so while we knew of each other we never spoke much. It is interesting to consider this aspect in terms of Wallace’s attraction factor of proximity which states that people are more attracted to one another the more often their paths cross. While we were miles away we would visit the same world on almost a daily basis, providing key opportunities to connect. Even then, we ran in different circles and while the opportunities were present they were rarely taken.
I can’t recall when it was we began really talking, but I remember a few messages back and forth via in game chat before moving our conversations to AIM. We spoke at length about common interests in music, health, fashion, hobbies, and art (common ground be another of Wallace’s attraction factors but not a focus here). I had made it a point to rarely disclose my picture nor ask an online friend for a picture to keep some distance between my “real-world” life and my life online. This was also to protect myself from negative perceptions of online friends, as I found all too often I lost interest in friendships when I found a buddy to be less than physically desirable. And, so it was with this precept that our friendship began to grow via AIM conversations.
Again, at a point lost on me, we finally chose to exchange pictures or one or the other of us had caught a glimpse of the other’s picture posted on some private forum or server dedicated to the game’s fan base. It was soon apparent that the attraction we had for one another based on common ground and proximity factors was quite enhanced by mutual physical attraction revealed by seeing each other’s photos (frankly she’s a looker and I will modestly say I’m not an ogre myself). Although, it's not unheard of to meet an attractive person in an online game, it was unexpected, especially by me.
While face to face relationships begin with physical awareness first and are found to furthered and solidified by proximity and common ground, ours began the other way around. The importance here is that although our relationship had evolved based upon personality characteristics to begin with, once the physical element was revealed our friendship really began to expand away from the game to other mediums of communication and more personal topics of conversation like family, friends, and love lives. In fact, considering other friendships I have made in that game, this was the only one that had ever stepped further into which I had felt comfortable sharing personal information and using other forms of communication. One could say my shallowness for good looks carries over to the online world, where they really shouldn’t matter.
Assignment #5: Does Virtual Infidelity Exist?
The Wall Street Journal Online article "Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?" is a feature of one man's virtual marriage and its toll on his real marriage; his example tests the impact of virtual identity on real, face to face relationships.
53-year old Ric Hoogestraat is one of eight million "residents" of Second Life, an online virtual fantasy world where people find jobs , attend concerts, date, and even build their own "homes". It is here where he met his online "wife," a slim, redheaded avatar named Tenaj Jackalope, controlled by a 38-year old Canadian woman, Janet Spielman. As unnatural (or natural to some) as it may seem, their virtual relationship resembles that of real-world relationships: they own two dogs, spend hours shopping together, and even pay a mortgage together. To make it even more "real," a marriage ceremony took place; thirty of their avatar friends attended the "ceremony."
However, the wife whom he is legally married to, 58-year old Sue Hoogestraat, is extremely concerned about Mr. Hoogestraat's online marriage and his dependency on this "second life." He assures her that it is only a game, but Mrs. Hoogestraat begs to differ. Since February of this year, Mr. Hoogestraat has been spending six hours a night and fourteen hour stretches on weekends as Dutch Hoorenbeek in Second Life, his six-foot-nine, muscular cyber-self. On Second Life, he is a successful entrepreneur and the owner of a mall, a private beach club, a dance club and a strip club, and his net worth is about $1.5 million of the virtual world's currency, the linden, which can be earned or purchased at a rate of about 250 lindens per U.S. dollar.
Analyze it in terms of 1. Deception and 2. Relationship factors
How did they play a role?
Was there something from our discussion that was missing?
5: Making (and keeping) Friends Online
I grew up about 15 minutes away from my cousin Jordan's high school. Jordan and I happen to be the same age, and look more like twin sisters than cousins, but that's an entirely different story. As one might expect, since we live so close to one another, we'd hang out more like friends would than relatives. So it was through Jordan that I met Louis, a friend of mine who I've had for several years. Louis is from my cousin's town so he also didn't go to my high school, and lived a drive, albeit a short drive, away. Louis and I met when we were in middle school, so initially driving to hang out was completely out of the question; our friendship was always very dependent on CMC (Computer Mediated Communication). Throughout the years, graduating high school, and leaving home for college, Louis and I have maintained a strong friendship despite the fact that we rarely see each other. How is this possible? To this McKenna proposes several possible explanations:
Connecting to similar others: Throughout several online spaces, it is easy to immediately detect whether or not someone has similar interests as you do. Although we began talking several years ago, I distinctly remember that Louis and I were immediately able to talk to one another about music (probably due to an IM profile). Even though our conversations span a wide range of topics, the fact that we like similar music is definitely one of the more prominent factors in our friendship. For instance, if theres a specific concert he's going to, he's always sure to tell me about it. Had I not been immediately exposed to such information about Louis via the Internet, its possible our friendship would not have lasted as long as it has.
Identifiability: According to McKenna, in online spaces such as AIM, we are more likely to self-disclose when we interact due to increased anonymity. This increase in self-disclosure results in relationship development. With Louis and I, the fact that I went to a different high school and didn't know most of his friends greatly contributed to his willingness to tell me about various aspects of his life. Similarly, its always easier to reveal information about yourself when you are typing rather than talking. Over the years I have become somewhat of a confidant to him, and this has absolutely added to the strength of our friendship.
I suppose the reason I am using Louis as an example is because of the strength of our friendship. Unlike people I went to high school with and saw on a daily basis, I would see Louis once or twice a month, if that and still I probably know more concrete facts about him than about many people I graduated with. I contribute this largely to the facilitating factors previously discussed; it certainly is easier to reveal information about yourself to someone you (a) know you share common-ground with and (b) someone who isn't looking right back at you.
This week's comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-shes-not-who-she-says-she-is.html
&
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-i-3-u-long-distance-relationships.html
Connecting to similar others: Throughout several online spaces, it is easy to immediately detect whether or not someone has similar interests as you do. Although we began talking several years ago, I distinctly remember that Louis and I were immediately able to talk to one another about music (probably due to an IM profile). Even though our conversations span a wide range of topics, the fact that we like similar music is definitely one of the more prominent factors in our friendship. For instance, if theres a specific concert he's going to, he's always sure to tell me about it. Had I not been immediately exposed to such information about Louis via the Internet, its possible our friendship would not have lasted as long as it has.
Identifiability: According to McKenna, in online spaces such as AIM, we are more likely to self-disclose when we interact due to increased anonymity. This increase in self-disclosure results in relationship development. With Louis and I, the fact that I went to a different high school and didn't know most of his friends greatly contributed to his willingness to tell me about various aspects of his life. Similarly, its always easier to reveal information about yourself when you are typing rather than talking. Over the years I have become somewhat of a confidant to him, and this has absolutely added to the strength of our friendship.
I suppose the reason I am using Louis as an example is because of the strength of our friendship. Unlike people I went to high school with and saw on a daily basis, I would see Louis once or twice a month, if that and still I probably know more concrete facts about him than about many people I graduated with. I contribute this largely to the facilitating factors previously discussed; it certainly is easier to reveal information about yourself to someone you (a) know you share common-ground with and (b) someone who isn't looking right back at you.
This week's comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-shes-not-who-she-says-she-is.html
&
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-i-3-u-long-distance-relationships.html
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