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 England. Naturally, because we were friends, we tried to stay in touch as much as possible after he left. Our communication with each other was generally limited to either IM or email. Email soon became the default mode of communication because we still had dial up internet with only one phone line, and the time difference made it hard to be online at the same time as him.

At first we talked together fairly often, mostly about the differences he was noticing between the States and England, or about anything noteworthy going on back home. By the time half a year had passed, we went from sending emails back and forth a few times a week to maybe a few times a month. Slowly we reduced the frequency of our communication until we rarely, if ever, talked. It wasn’t that we didn’t like each other anymore, just that it seemed there was less and less to say to each other. Nowadays we never email or talk over IM, but he will still let me know if he’s visiting the US, so we can see each other.

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 America and wants to see his old friends.

Yay! I finally figured out how to edit posts! Here are links to my comments:

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