A few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting the son of some friends of the family for the first time in person. For the past year, Dan and I had been conversing online through AOL Instant Messenger and Facebook, although we had never met. After my brother had given Dan my AIM screen name, Dan initiated communication with me, and we investigated each other’s Facebook profile. After talking a short while, we discovered that we both had several things in common, including an enjoyment of similar movies and music. The instant accessibility of the CMC environment (especially the internet) allowed Dan to eventually “become a fan” of the videos I had made and uploaded to YouTube, while I enjoyed listening to some of the new artists that Dan had recommended.
The Uncertainty Reduction Theory states that one will like a person and have a better impression of another person as one gains more and more information about that person. Since Dan and I began to communicate more and more on a regular basis after discovering our common interests, the URT was initially supported in this case, before I met him, because I felt I knew a lot about him. The timing of the switch from CMC to FTF (approximately one year) would probably be considered long term; in my case the long-term period of “incubating” in CMC helped us to understand each other better before we actually met in person.
Ramirez and Wang determined that in the short run, going from CMC to FTF would result in a positive effect, while in the long run, going from CMC to FTF would result in a more negative effect. We were both looking forward setting up a meeting between my family/me and him/our family friends (his parents), but it seems like our families are seeing less and less of each other these days. Since we enjoyed each other's FTF company at first but later saw less and less of each other, these results tend to confirm Ramirez and Wang’s research. In the short run, SIDE Theory and the Hyperpersonal model were not confirmed by my initial experience meeting Dan and his family; in the long run they have been confirmed: our impressions of each other have become more negative, as we have initiated AIM conversations less and less in the recent weeks.
3 comments:
Hey Joe, nice post. Your experience seems to confirm SIP, because over time you got to know more about Dan and share more information about yourselves with each other. The extended length of time allowed your relationship to develop so you knew each other almost as well as you would have FtF. However, I feel like your experience contradicts URT. URT predicts a positive outcome for leaving virtuality because when you meet FtF you learn more about the other person and therefore should have a greater affinity for them. After meeting Dan, you talked to him less and less and have a more negative impression of him.
Hi Joe!
Great post, and I agree with you that the outcome was likely heavily dependent on the length of time spent in CMC. Although you found common interests over CMC, your actual FtF meeting probably revealed some details or factors that did not go well with you. The SIDE/Hyperpersonal model definitely applies in your case (long term) as eventually the impression was negative after modality switching.
Lovely analysis and use of theories to explain the evolution of this friendship. From experience it is usually the case, as Ramirez and Wang stated, over time, communication dwindles because of the lack of opportunity to see each other Ftf and feed the relationship. In my case, whenever I finally have the chance get in touch with the individual either Ftf or CMC things go back to normal for a while and then over time, it dwindles again due to conflicts in schedules. I feel like it is natural to loose touch with an individual overtime because of the physical Ftf distance lagging between two people but as long as the two people left on good terms the communication can be revamped.
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