Eight years after Patricia Wallace’s book, The Psychology of the Internet, was first published, the students of COMM245 considered Wallace’s ideas as we studied the psychology of social computing throughout this semester. Since the Internet is a rapidly changing space, we found that some of Wallace’s ideas were no longer as relevant (e.g. emphasizing MUDs) and there were other Internet spaces that she did not anticipate (e.g. social networking sites). Similarly, as our use of the Internet continues to change, certain theories and phenomena we have learned about will hold true while others will need to be altered.Anonymity, or the degree to which the space reveals participant identities, is an important dimension of various spaces on the Internet. This dimension can be influenced by visibility, audibility, and self-expression. I believe that CMC will become less and less anonymous over time. Perhaps the use of video conferencing and audio chat will become more widely utilized as CMC becomes a primary means of communication rather than a compliment or prerequisite to other mediums. I’ve recently noticed some small changes that show hints of individuals opening up online, such as adding a picture of themselves as their buddy icon. Maybe in the future it will become more acceptable to align face-to-face and CMC even more—and therefore have less emphasis on anonymity. As the Internet becomes less anonymous, various communication theories that relate to anonymity (SIDE, etc.) will need to be adapted.
Aside from how we are visibly seen and audibly heard through CMC, I believe our identities will be kept less anonymous on the Internet due to the increasing amount of information becoming available online. One of McKenna’s (2007) relationship facilitation factors referred to as “getting the goods” discusses the ability to get information about others online through areas such as Google, Facebook, etc. prior to meeting face-to-face. The more information that individuals are able to find out about others—the less control individuals will have over how they present themselves while communicating online.
Selective self-representation, an attribute of Walther’s (1996) Hyperpersonal Model entails that various spaces on the Internet allow individuals to control which of their personal characteristics are expressed to others and have the ability to emphasize their desirable characteristics while hiding others. Selective self-presentation may become less applicable in the future since we may people will be able to find out a great deal about us through the Internet. This aspect can be tied into theories relating to online attraction, digital deception, and social associations.
I believe that in the future there will be more emphasis on synchronicity online, leading individuals to be expected to interact in real time and therefore have less time to carefully craft their representations—further mimicking face-to-face interactions. I believe technology will keep changing to further replicate the face-to-face environment, eventually leading theories such as the Social Information Processing Theory to fade out, since individuals will truly be getting to know someone online in the same way as they would face-to-face.
In addition to revising theories as our use of the Internet changes, there will be new topics that will need to be addressed. As PDAs become even more widely used, I believe this technology will need to be addressed in COMM245. It would be interesting to apply the concept of Internet addiction to this area. Another important aspect to look at would be the consumption of various forms of news and information online. What sort of news or other information do individuals seek online rather than other mediums, and why? Furthermore, with the constant customization of websites to individual’s own tastes it would be interesting to look at social computing from a company’s perspective. What sort of tactics do they use to ensure that individuals will continue going back to their site?
Although I can’t be sure that any of my predictions will hold to be true in the future, I am sure of one thing—the social computing theories that I’ve learned in COMM245 will definitely change my view of my personal experiences using the Internet in the present and the future.
2 comments:
Hi Alyssa. I really enjoyed reading your blog. I found especially interesting your thoughts about anonymity. I completely agree with your idea that as technology advances anonymity will disappear. There are already some ways that anonymity disappears online, such as pictures and video-conferencing. I have no doubt that the future will bring more ways to reveals one’s identity online. I also agree with your thought that the future will bring more synchronicity online. In life, people always want things faster, so it will not be a surprise that CMC will become faster.
Alyssa, I think this idea of the Internet becoming the primary means of communication is very important. Throughout Wallace’s book (because of when it was written) she talks about the Internet as if it is this other thing that nobody really understands or knows about. She explains the most basic and fundamental things as if nobody can understand chat room, etc. The Internet will be a very different place than the one described in The Psychology of The Internet now that it’s comprehensiveness and ease of use have grown so much. Another really important idea you touch is the decrease in control of self-presentation. Interactional control and anonymity are two of the most important theme we talked about in this class, and yet both of them are under attack from the increase in information that is out there, and the ease with which anybody can obtain information about us. Very good analysis.
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