Assignment #2 - Chat rooms, Indie musicians, misunderstandings, oh my!

I have never felt completely comfortable with chat rooms. The chaotic exchange of brief conversations and the rampant disregard to basic rules of grammar seem to create a hostile environment that is coldly impersonal and hotly unpredictable. Fortunately, a friend of mine runs a private chat room which is part of a large music community mainly for Indie (Independent) musicians, and he granted me temporary access to chat with some of the musicians.

For the chat room I chose an innocuous and gender-neutral handle “BC.” I was initially greeted and then promptly ignored, unsurprising since I am not an Indie musician and thus “outside of the crowd.” Fortunately one person, who chats under the name “Rank,” was friendly enough to initiate a private conversation with me, and we took off fairly well from there.

My first impression of Rank is an air of openness. His band is heavily influenced by punk rock and hardcore/metal bands, so it is unsurprising that he takes a very liberal view on many issues ranging from religion to politics. However, his spelling and grammar skills are far from stellar, and like many chat room users some of his sentences were at times incoherent. (e.g. “Rank: I shudnt say u know but i guess so, its yaeh...ok”) At first I visualized a fourteen year old punk rocker that enthusiastically supports legalizing marijuana and banning religion from the world. However, that first impression was quickly squashed after he told me that he is in fact married, has a newborn daughter, and has recently taken a light interest in his family’s religion, Judaism. In about one hour or so of text conversation, my view of Rank evolved from a stereotypical punk rocker to a mix of Freemason, father, chef, and pretty good bloke in general. Although I doubted his claims at first, he managed to show a good breath of knowledge when we discussed Masonic history and Judeo-Christian subjects, demonstrating that he is fairly knowledgeable and mature.

I believe that my experience is an excellent supportive example for the Hyperpersonal Model. The over-attrition aspect is quite evident as I formed a stereotypical view in my mind as soon as I stepped into the chat room – that is, Indie musicians tend to be liberal, hippy-esque, young, etc. The rather lack of elegance and eloquence in Rank’s sentences initially reinforced my belief that he is younger than I and gave an air of idealistic fervor found often in teenagers. Slowly, however, the developmental stage rolled in and as I received more “cues” or information about his personality/life, I was able to form a completely different view – a much more mature, fatherly, and independent image, albeit still fairly idealistic.

On my side, I did my best to give a positive presence. Rank treated me like a close friend soon after we engaged in conversation, telling me all about his family and career, and I felt I should return the warmth. I was thoroughly supportive of many of his views, and I tried my best to show interest. The behavioral confirmation, or feedback, was glowingly evident between us. I acted very friendly and supportive because he talked to me like to a close friend, and he in turn tried to spell better and converse in a more mature/focused manner after I showed interest in him being a Freemason and chef.

Overall I was rather impressed by the experience and I am glad that I have possibly made a good friend over the Internet in under an hour. Although I was glad that we never had the typical chat introduction in chat rooms (“a/s/l?”), I was slightly dismayed when Rank said “nice talking to u babe, u are an interesting girl but I’m taken haha” just before leaving the chat room. I did not in our conversation refer to my gender (male, in case the reader does not know). I did however compliment him by saying that his wife is lucky to have him, and I suppose my elementary grasp of the use of the chat room, coupled with my nearly OCD-like attention to spelling and syntax might have formed a feminine image in his mind. This misunderstanding is a good example of the inadequacy of CMC communication, and it also shows that over the Internet people may take various cues in completely different ways and form impressions that, while not unreasonable, are in fact totally inaccurate.

Huge sports fan...perhaps??

I entered this assignment with a bit of hesitation and nervousness, being that it was my first online chatting experience and had no idea of what to expect. The chat room I entered was at familychat.com which I found though a general Google search; and after entering my age (21) I was directed to the adult chat room. Upon entering I was immediately greeted by a few active participants, one of whom had the nickname DeeMan. From the beginning I picked up on many of the numerous cues we discussed in class, which led me to develop an impression and some assumptions about what DeeMan was like in reality.

First of all, the nickname (DeeMan) the iconic symbol (a football) quickly demonstrated that the person I was chatting with was a male. His verbal cues led me form some passive impression formations. For example, I believe that DeeMan was a sports fan (specifically a football fan) and that perhaps he even played a defensive position for a team somewhere- hence the “Dee” part in his nickname. DeeMan used some of his own tactics to form an impression about me as well. By engaging in interactive strategies like ASL (a.k.a, Age/ Sex/Location) he learned more about where I was from, and later why I was there (being a student). The questions I asked him in our dialogue assisted me in categorizing him socially. For example when I asked him where he attended college he informed me he went to the University of Texas, which was near where he grew up. Leading me to believe he was a “southerner,” and had a good education under his belt. Many of our questions during our chat were interpersonal probes which allowed us to selectively choose what we wanted to share about ourselves.

In regards to personality categories, DeeMan most outwardly demonstrated extraversion and openness. He was the first to greet me in the chat room, gave me a short introduction to the topic of discussion, and throughout asked me my opinion about the few topics we discussed. He went out his way to get me to participate. By far he was the ring leader in the group, making sure that the conversation kept going. He was never hesitant to answer my questions either, which is why I would have categorized him as open. Additionally I gained the impression that overall he was a warm and friendly, but not too emotional of a man.

After evaluating the conversation and impressions gained from DeeMan, I realized that the Hyperpersonal model best fits the way I gained my impressions. The few cues I did have, most of them initially being verbal, led me to make huge generalizations about this individual. For example I thought he was the “sports fan, who is a typical male because he especially loves football.” Additionally, the little information I gained about DeeMan made me feel as if I knew him for a while and at the end of our conversation I had a really good impression of the guy. I believe that I over-attributed the few cues I did know about him which made him seem almost familiar, and the reason I thought mostly positive things about him was due to his selective self presentation.

Assignment Two: Impression Formation.

I was excited about this week’s assignment, as I thought it would be an exciting experience to try online impression formation firsthand after last week’s lecture. Upon entering a chatroom, I received chat requests from four users, with whom I chatted for a considerable period of time. I will limit my discussion to my interactions with one particular chatroom member, a twenty-year-old Italian male medical student.

Although I talked to this individual for almost an hour, I struggled to form any impression of him without any nonverbal or visual cues. Furthermore, I noticed that I constantly asked him questions, in an attempt to obtain a better grasp on his personality, rather than responding to his comments or talking about my own experience. Overall, any impressions that I did manage to form of him were neutral or slightly positive. He used emoticons frequently throughout the conversation, which lead me to believe he is friendly and agreeable, however, it was difficult to gauge his level of extraversion, or even whether or not we would be friendly in a face to face setting. Out of all of the “big five” personality traits, I feel most confident in assessing his openness; I interpreted his interest in my life in the US to mean that he is receptive to new ideas and cultures. As far as his neuroticism and conscientiousness, I cannot comment either way.

My experience conforms most closely to the CFO perspective, as my impressions lacked both intensity and breadth. My impressions were fairly neutral, and I found it difficult to form them on more than one or two dimensions. As Hancock and Dunham predicts, it was especially difficult to form impressions regarding extraversion and neuroticism, to which nonverbal cues are critical. Of the two CFO theories, the Social Presence Theory seems most relevant, as the decreased social presence of my partner led to impoverished impression formation. I didn’t find the Reduced Social Context Cues Theory relevant, in that I was no more likely to focus on myself than when conversing face-to-face.

My experience contradicted the SIP theory in that I was unable to adapt to channel over time in order to reach nearly the same level of social information exchange as I would face-to-face. In fact, my impression did not vary significantly within the hour-long timeframe. In addition, my experience ran contrary to the Hyperpersonal model, which shares some elements with the SIP model. Not only did I not form exaggerated impressions, but I also didn’t engage in selective self-perception, which is integral to the theory. I felt no desire to self-select what to present, perhaps because I didn’t feel emotionally invested in how my partner perceived me.

Assignment 2: LiveJournal

Hey all, I was too uncertain about chat rooms to do my observation in one. So, I chose the much less threatening task of stalking strangers’ LiveJournal entries. I was somewhat surprised that many people post their blogs publicly on this site, so I had a wide variety to choose from. I read through several LiveJournals and decided against them since I didn’t feel like I had really formed a strong impression of any of the people. Perhaps this is some evidence for the CFO theory, applying more to this one sided interaction via blogs, than to synchronous two-way communication with IM.
Eventually, I stumbled upon the blog of “crazy_shane.” I immediately determined that he was a male artist, specifically creating prints for posters and t-shirts. He had posted some pictures of his artwork, which struck me as another interesting way to form an impression of a person. Since this particular person wrote more freely about himself than many of the other blogs I read, I would say he is fairly open. The most recent post mentioned a busy weekend, going to a concert with a friend, watching a movie with friends, this lead me to believe that he was probably relatively extroverted since he obviously doesn’t just sit around alone. In a later entry he seemed quite conscientious. He posted two simple lists describing his own understanding of himself and then setting goals for change:

“I am not...
going to Europe
working at superbig
being creative enough
using my time efficiently

I am...
Looking for a great job
Doing a little freelance
Saving money to move out
Getting in shape.
I've got many a big battle ahead of me. I need to find a decent job, move out, and start my life. I need to continue working my ass off to get in shape, so far, I have lost zero weight, but now I can run 3 miles in 30 minutes…so I'm definitely in the right direction. I need to make some new friends and do more things…” This post made him seem open to change and also portrayed that he was perhaps trying to remind himself of his personal goals. Even though his screen name is “crazy_shane” he didn’t seem to display any neurotic tendencies.
One feature of his blog was the “Current Music” note, and in several of his posts he wrote that he was listening to NPR. This led me to believe that he must be of a more liberal persuasion and probably more educated than some of the other bloggers. This seemed to fit with my view of him as an ‘artsy’ person. I realize that I assumed a lot by gaining this impression, both about Shane and about NPR listeners.
My impressions of Shane seemed to support the Hyperpersonal theory. Since I only had a limited amount of information about Shane himself, I filled in the gaps using what I knew about other artists and people with similar taste in music and presumed him to be very open, artsy, and liberal. Therefore, he did become something of a stereotype to me, but his list of goals gave me a more personalized picture of this stranger.

Assignment #2 Impression Formation

Tonight I delved into the world of chat rooms. At first it was a bit overwhelming trying to find out where to go, it was of course harder than I imagined to find one. However I ended up on teenspot.com and entering the “Hangout” chat room. I picked this one because it seemed relaxed by the title and it had only a few people. I thought it would be easier to get to know someone the less people there were; keep things simple. Upon entering immediately I was asked if I was a girl. Then I was asked by the same boy, pattex, what my asl was. Confused by the terminology I just asked and found out it was my info, more specifically my name and age. Immediately following pattex invited me to a person-to-person chat. This is where we really started to talk one on one in the CMC environment. From the first few minutes I felt an immediate rush of questions, there was no reservation in asking questions such as name, age, interests, and social types.

At first I was turned off by pattex because he was too forceful in the conversation and it was uncomfortable for me. He came off as cold because of this. Then once we started talking he wanted to know more about me and this personality seemed warmer. As far as the 5 big traits; neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness I only really got a good idea of his openness. All of the other traits I felt like I didn’t have a basis to judge from. His openness however in the beginning came off as cold but later I think I adjusted my expectations from FtF conversation to more CMC style. I think this observation is directly related to the CFO (cues filtered out) perspective that states “lack of cues in CMC should lead to neutral, negative, developed impressions.” This is dead on to my experience because I really couldn’t get a good idea of what kind of person this was because the conversation was so removed feeling from a FtF first impression of meeting someone. I don’t think that he spoke in the same way he would have if we had met in person.

Overall, I feel as thought since I was going into a space where I had never been and knew no one that the conversation was very different in CMC form than it would have been FtF however, I think that when I talk to someone online who I have met in person, even if only to a small extent, I can get a much better impression from CMC. I think this is because even the smallest amount of an introduction gives the conversation somewhere to start from without resorting to the blunt and cold standard questions.

What can Brown do for you? (Assignment 2)

Sorry—the title. I couldn’t help myself.

For this assignment, I decided to check out the old IRC networks that used to dominate the chat scene before AOL, Yahoo, and MSN arrived. Using a default configuration and under the alias “SillyRabbit”, I connected to the EFNet IRC server, which calls itself “the oldest and one of the largest IRC networks in the world.” I reasoned that it would be fertile ground, with plenty of chatters willing to interact. What I found was an assortment of channels dedicated to pirated media, pornography, and small web hosting services. Eventually, I wandered into “#thelounge,” and struck up a conversation with ‘roBERNIE.’

Our conversation covered a number of issues, including the US Open and our favorite tennis players, where we each live (he’s from Australia), the differences between American football and Australian football (or rugby) and briefly European soccer. We also spoke in depth on the drinking trends are various sports venues, but were cut off by others entering the conversation and my unfortunate disconnection from the IRC server, due to connection problems.

My first impression of roBERNIE was derived from simple observations and not from our conversation. First, it is a masculine name which led me to assume that he is a ‘he’ – I later confirmed this by asking him ‘what he thought’ about so-and-so. He was also one of the very few users in the channel, including myself, who did not have operator (@) authorization, which is an IRC function that allows certain users the ability to remove, or kick, anyone else and to exercise a number of other administrative abilities in the chat room. So, right off the bat, I knew that we were both strangers to this place. And finally, he was the one attempting to initiate conversation with others, by opening with “ne 1 from aus?”

For a while, we were the only two chatting in a room that held roughly 80 people. Throughout the conversation, he would truncate his text (anyone=ne1, you=u, mates=m8s, etc), use acronyms, and insert and overwhelming amount of cuss words (which may be an Australian thing—I “dunna”). My natural inclination was to see him as either uneducated, lazy with the keyboard, or fearful of appearing too ‘try hard.’ I soon learned that he was tennis fan, though, which helps, and that he too has a general dislike for the Australian all-courter, Lleyton Hewitt.

My impression of roBERNIE is more in line with the Hyperpersonal theory than with CFO. I found that simply because of a lack of FtF communication and nonverbal cues, I was more motivated to develop an impression of the person I was dealing with, however inaccurate. I also found that as more time passed, my mental image of roBERNIE became much more rich, detailed, and led me to re-evaluate some of my initial assumptions--evidence of SIP.

Online Stalkers....

I have always heard those scary stories about those creepy online addicts who stalk profiles and start conversations with random people they have never met before. Today, I was one of those stalkers. I decided to search AIM profiles until I found someone who seemed appealing to talk to. After searching many profiles, I finally came across a person's page whose 'interests' and 'about me' caught my attention. He had spent a lot of time updating his profile, so I automatically judged him to be a friendly on-line chatter. We began talking and did not seem too worried about the fact that we had never met in person (I on the other hand found it very strange to be talking to him without even knowing his name).

My conversation was a good example of the hyperpersonal model because I over-attributed my first impressions and generalized many of his statements . He had a picture of an animated guitar in his AIM screen and used emoticons frequently. He mentioned that he was from Texas and followed sports at UT. He also told me he was a double major at a university in Texas and one day wanted to be a pro golfer. From these small details, I concluded that he was a very warm, out-going person who was a good student, with goals and ambitions, was into music and enjoyed a variety of different sports.

It was very interesting to see how easy it is to judge a person based on an online conversation. Reflecting back on the conversation, especially with some of the knowledge I have already gained from this class, I realize that based on the chat I had with this male, I really don't know very much at all about him. I may know specific details about him, which may or may not be true, but I really don't know much about his personality or character. I understand more after completing this assignment the dangers associated with judging and stereotyping others based on online conversations.