I decided the best place for me to meet someone new was a chat room. I haven’t been in a real chat room since middle school and it would provide me with the opportunity to interact with many people. Chat rooms are basically synchronous chats meaning I could carry on a fluent conversation. There is usually no persistence and I could be as anonymous as I wanted to be. I simply Googled ‘chat rooms’ until I found a chat room titled “students” from ICQ. I joined the chat and greeted everyone in the room. I immediately received a response from CheeseBalls. I took this as a sign that he/she would chat with me so I sent him/her a message for a private chat and he/she accepted.
Since we were in the “students” chat, I asked CheeseBalls where he/she went to school. I learned he/she is 20 years old, goes to college in NYC and is studying Japanese. I don’t know what race he/she is, but I know he/she is not Japanese because I asked. The entire chat I never asked what sex CheeseBalls was, mostly because I wanted to see if he/she gave away any clues. While I still don’t know for sure if CheeseBalls was male or female, I believe that he was male based on his interests so I will refer to CheeseBalls as male from now on.
CheeseBalls was very open with me, especially as we discovered common interests. We both enjoy N64 video games and playing Frisbee. Throughout the conversation he was very friendly and outgoing. He seemed confident and relaxed. I would classify him as having “warm” traits.
Of course this assessment is based only on our online chat so there were some channels missing that are present in face-to-face communication. There were no vocal cues and tone was sometimes hard to pick up on. In some cases, tone can be understood online by changing case or adding italics or bold, but our conversation had none of these cues. I was only able to observer CheeseBalls online, but I did view him both in the general chat room and in our private conversation. In the general chat he was very friendly to everyone which was also reflected in our private chat.
My impressions of CheeseBalls are most closely explained in the Hyperpersonal Theory. Anything he said left a strong impression in my mind. For example, in the chat room, watching him greet everyone who joined immediately made me conclude he was a very friendly and outgoing person. I didn’t experience neutral or undeveloped impressions like the CFO theory suggests. It would be interesting to see what CheeseBalls is like in real life to see if my strong impressions match with his true personality.
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Matt, I also entered a chat room to complete this assignment and actually went about it the same way you did by going a Google search for ‘chat rooms.’ After reading your blog post I realized that I shared many of the same initial experiences you did.
When I entered the room everyone greeted me, but one individual particularly took to my liking by making sure I was up-to-date on the topic of conversation, and often asked me for my opinion about whatever the topic of conversation was. DeeMan (the individual I am referring to) was very open and warm with me. Many of the personality categories we discussed in class were quite evident and allowed me to form some of my initial assumptions and impressions. Like you it seems like we got to know our partners through interpersonal probes, and reciprocal self disclosure. The few things I did learn, and the verbal cues I did pick up about my partner allowed me to develop impressions through the Hyperpersonal Model, like you did. The fact that we had such a similar experience makes me wonder if most online chatting instances happen in a similar fashion?
Hi Matt. I also chose the chatroom route, and like you, I tried to avoid the urge to probe for personal information, such as sex, age, or their location, but instead to try to sift out clues in their language or allow them to ask first.
I found that they would often try to figure out my sex, general age, and my country of origin before they would allow the conversation to touch upon any sort of disclosure involving their opinions or interests. After these interpersonal probes were out of the way, we began the process of reciprocal self-disclosure, like Annelise described.
The reiterate Annelise's question: DO chat room relationships develop in the same linear pattern, through reducing social uncertainty via probes and mutual disclosure? And also, how would things differ if you intentionally disrupted the natural progression by refusing to cooperate or appearing incongruent?
Matt,
I think it is very interesting that you were able to make it an entire conversation without knowing the other persons sex. It is especially interesting that you formed your hyperpersonal model without knowing their sex. Although it is not the only factor in forming an impression, it definitely helps to generalize an opinion of a person in the hyperpersonal model. I did a chat room also and one of the first things I was asked was a/s/l. It seems like it has almost become a normal part of the greeting in chat rooms. "Hi, hows it going, asl please?"
I wonder if they realized that they did not tell you because not knowing their sex could also affect behavioral confirmation. If they were a female and you were treating them as a male, how could that affect how they respond?
Good post.
) did you know how cheese was invented? It wasnt necessity, it was an accident, read this
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