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
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