Learning more and more about CMC communication and online interactions it is becoming more and interesting to me to see how people are using the technology we have today because it is so much more vast an area than I ever thought. This makes be a little scared for the future, however. Seeing how technology is changing and growing in leaps and bound makes me fearful of a world where face to face interactions are at a minimum and your avatar interacts with more people than you do on a daily basis.
There are many theories that we learned about in 245 that I think will hold true in the future. This is because even as CMC technology changes it will not change the way people think or interact. Human nature will not be changing any time soon. Impression management will always be applicable because people will always desire to make themselves appear the way they want to appear and make the best impression possible. In the future there will probably be even more ways to selectively self present yourself. For example, not so long ago the idea of online dating profiles and avatars were unheard of let alone common. I believe that digital deception will still be a part of CMC because it is human nature to lie and the increase in the amount of communicating we do via CMC and the inevitable new ways will only make digital deception easier to pull off.
Media richness theory I believe will also still be applicable in the future because we ill never stop wanting to find the best, most efficient, and face saving means of communicating our message. It was probable even become more and more prevalent because efficiency becomes so much more important to us it seems as we find newer more efficient medium. For example, text messaging has increased the efficiency with which I communicate so much that I feel I am even becoming spoiled, wanting even more efficient media. Maybe telepathy will go mainstream soon, who knows.
I also think that the hyperpersonal model will continue to hold true. I think that as more and more people use online communication there will be a greater likelihood in your mind that you are talking to a normal person just like you and not a pedophile or thirty year old in his parents’ basement. Not only will it be human nature to make immediate judgments, the decrease in skepticism will cause more over attribution in those judgments.
I think that the CFO theory will probably become obsolete. CFO states that CMC communication leads to poor and negative impressions because of fewer cues. However, as we use CMC more and more a new set of cues will be emerging that our generation and future generations will be able to pick up as easily and with as much accuracy as we do in FtF interactions. Even take emoticons for example. Emoticons are relatively new but are already easily recognized and universally understood.
I believe that there will be a huge increase in technology and the amount that people communicate using CMC as well as more ways in which to do so. Being in the same place at the same time will most likely become less and less necessary. Businesses will surely find ways of using technology to their advantage. For example video conferencing is just one thing that is widely used now but not so long ago seemed like something out of the Jetson’s. Education will surely find new ways to utilize technology. I for one never thought that I would be doing homework assignments and posting them on an online blog for everyone to read. This course has made me curious as to how people will continue to communicate in the future and how we will use technology to make our lives easier.
1 comment:
Colleen, I completely agree with your post. The fact that basic human nature will not change much is exactly why I said, in my post, that most of these theories will always remain relevant. Even if they change a little bit, their fundamental assumptions and concepts will continue on because people are still people. We will still interact on the internet, form groups, etc. It is interesting that you bring up Media Richness Theory. A theory like that, which is based on the different kinds of media we have, will only become more complex and useful as new technology develops. I don’t know if Cue Filtered Out will become obsolete, however, because I think there will always be people out there who are FtF purists and think that CMC just isn’t the same. I think there will be fewer of these people in the future, and they will have a weaker argument, but CFO will always be around. Great post.
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