6: Option 1 - Calorie Count Leviathan

As a health conscious person, I came across a calorie counting website that gives breakdowns, nutrition facts, and grades (ranging from A to F) on foods. Ideally, this site is used mostly by people who are trying to improve their lifestyle or are trying to lose weight. I first used the site primarily for the factual information, but found that there was a lot more to it, including a community where users contribute by posting advice and problems on forums about various topics. In order to make a post or comment in any forum, a username must be created and terms of agreement must be accepted. The terms of agreement lay out the policies and rights of the users. Wallace refers to these “specialty signs,” which explain the rules and purpose of the forums to the users before they are allowed to enter. In this instance, the site administration provides the prerequisite behavioral guidelines, which are what Wallace refers to as “the signs on the door.”

Most users accept the site’s social norms of being encouraging and motivating in their comments to help others to continue their pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. Besides the terms of agreement, where comments will be removed if they do not abide by the terms, people inherently know to socially conform to this polite conduct because it is the purpose of the site – to provide positive feedback to other users. Also, the presence of social influence plays an important role because the members influence one another’s attitudes and opinions. To protect the site, when old users see that someone has posted a rude comment, they will politely let the author of the comment know and defend the author of the discussion so they will not feel discouraged. Since members relate to each other through overcoming weight issues and are willing to defend one another, they have a strong group identity. Therefore, the salient group and visually anonymous members lead to conformity to norms and social influence. This follows the SIDE (social identity deindividuation effect) Theory in which people relate self to others based on membership and there is a loss of self-awareness through visual anonymity and crowd behavior.

On the site, the Leviathan monitors the contributions made by users to ensure orderliness amongst the discussions. For each topic (i.e. – weight loss, health and support, fitness, etc.), there is a list of moderators, consisting of volunteer users, that maintain the objectives of the website. According to Wallace, they would be considered the Leviathan because they are the presence of authority so that other users will feel safe to post comments without the risk of feeling ridiculed. Their intent is not to “kill” anyone’s discussion contributions, but more to ensure a clear and orderly environment. They will either edit posts to clarify discussions, move posts to different topics, or remove posts where potential flame wars may be present. So that users do not feel that they have lost control over the posts, the moderator will specify why the post was edited. Users conform to the conventions set by the Leviathan, or in this case, the moderators, by relinquishing their freedoms in order to preserve the online group environment.

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5.1- The Facilitation of Sin

I found that McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors were particularly relevant for one of my “relationships” during my freshman year at college. During my freshman year here at Cornell, I used to hang out at my friend’s resident hall since I hated the one that I lived in. One day while I was hanging out with him and a couple other people in the dorm, I met a cute, quiet-looking girl. Our encounter lasted less than three or four minutes and when I had to leave, I pretty much forgot about the girl. A couple days later, I got a random IM from someone whose screen name I had never seen before. It was that same girl I had met the other night. We started to chat and I started to make her “lol” and it seemed like we were hitting it off. Then, I ran into her in person and I couldn’t stand to be around her for more than five minutes. It seemed like we had nothing in common and we could barely carry a conversation. After this awkward encounter, we chatted on AIM and everything was all good again. We continued these AIM chat sessions until we had to meet up show affection in ways you can’t do on AIM.

This relationship continued and got more intimate purely because of McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors, especially the removal of gating factors and interactional control. Like I said, I could not stand to be around the girl (or to talk to her at least) for more than five minutes at time. I don’t remember what it was about her that kept me from being able to tolerate her presence but I remember thinking that I liked way more when I didn’t have to hear her. Online, I could put her on the backburner. I could do some homework, listen to some music, watch a movie or even chat with someone more interesting while I nurtured this little “relationship” I had going with her. Without the pesky little gating factors like FTF conversation and being seen together in public, we would not have gotten as far as we did. Interaction control was the reason that our “relationship” even existed. AIM allowed me to determine how much attention I paid to her every time we interacted. When I spoke to her, I could not just walk away from her in the middle of a conversation just because I had gotten bored.

In many ways, AIM was the only space in which we could have a relationship, since I don’t believe that we could have one in which we had to interact face to face on a regular basis.

Assignment 5 Option 1: Long-Distance Relationship

During my senior year of high school, I grew quite close to a girl from school. Surprisingly, we met in an online environment, then moved to face-to-face interaction. We decided to try to keep the relationship going in college and see how well a long distance relationship worked out. We chatted daily quite a bit through computer mediated communication, as well as phones. I find that it is quite easy to carry on a conversation online for extended periods of time. It allowed for more self-disclosure than would probably have taken place in an FtF situation, and I didn’t feel like our lives were that far separated thanks to the wonders of modern communication.

Initially, I might attribute our relationship to McKenna’s “Stranger on the Train” effect. This states that because of the level of anonymity between us, it was easier for self-disclosure to take place, especially through CMC. Granted we went to the same high school, we did not meet FtF until the first few interactions via CMC. However, as we grew to know each other, and even on into college, the amount of self-disclosure that was taking place between us every day was phenomenal. Our relationship certainly supports McKenna’s relationship facilitation factor of indentifiability. McKenna states that the more identifiable someone is, the higher the chance of self-disclosure through CMC. He also states that the more anonymous someone is, the higher the chance of self-disclosure through CMC. In this case both have proven true.

After our initial meetings, we had to remove the “gating features” in our relationship. McKenna describes gating features as physical attractiveness, social anxiety, master status cues, etc… We both happened to be somewhat shy at the time, which might account for why we met first in a CMC environment. Overcoming this social anxiety, as well as finally seeing whether or not we might be physically attracted to one another allowed us to move forward in the relationship. It was much easier to take this step in removing gates since we were already familiar with the other person’s personality and character. Thanks to starting our relationship in an anonymous setting, we had moved past personality similarities before approaching physical appearance. Since we were already attracted to each other, overcoming these gates was simple.

Overall, I found that McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors held true in this case. Our relationship was definitely something I will cherish for the rest of my life. However, now that I’ve written this, I believe I will find it hard to not analyze future relationships according to the models we have been learning in this class.

Assignment #5: My Cornell friend before arriving on campus

The summer before I transferred to Cornell, I decided I wanted to see who else was transferring with me. I went straight to Facebook and I joined a group entitled “Cornell Transfers Fall 2005.” I was able to see who else was in my classes, in my dorm, shared interests, etc. and occasionally I would get a friend request from one person or another. In late July, I received an instant message from a guy that was my Cornell “facebook friend,” we will refer to this person as “Joe” for this assignment. Joe was also transferring to Cornell and he wanted to get to know some of our classmates through IMing before arriving on campus in August. Joe and I talked every so often before I came to Cornell, and by the time we had to go to school I felt that I really knew all about Joe’s life.

My interaction with Joe can be applied to McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors. McKenna five factors are identifiability, removal of gating features, interactional control, connecting to similar others and getting the goods. In my online communication with Joe, both interactional control and connecting to similar others apply to our situation. Interactional control is selective self presentation online. You can chose what you say and when you say things online. Interactional control applied to my situation with Joe because I was able to easily disclose only the information I wanted him to know on instant messenger. The only information he knew was from my facebook profile, which also was I was also selective in posting, not revealing too much information. Through instant messaging I was able to control the direction of the conversation and if he asked me a question I was uncertain how to answer, I could take my time in responding. In addition, he could not see my nonverbal cues such as facial expressions.

Connecting to similar others is also relevant to our situation. McKenna describes this concept as the “common ground principle,” it is easy to connect with similar others. The whole reason for our interaction was our similar situation of transferring to Cornell. If it was not for the social networking group “Cornell Transfers Fall 2005” we might not have even talked. As we began talking we realized we had even more in common, we both were politics majors at our other schools, we both went to schools in big cities and would be living in the same dorm. These commonalities fostered further conversation and the more Joe shared the easier it was for me to share information too.

Although once arriving at Cornell, Joe and I ended up making different friends, we still stay hello to one other on campus. It was also great to be able to come to Cornell knowing I had a friend, thanks to computer mediated communication.

Assignment 5 Option 1

I met my high school boyfriend at a mutual friend’s house. We were introduced briefly, but that was the end of our interaction that night. Based on that quick encounter I decided I thought he was cute and definitely physically “my type”. I decided he was someone I wanted to get to know a little bit more based on that physical attractiveness. Therefore, Wallace’s factor of physical attractiveness does not apply in my case; the order of attraction was not reversed, the “getting to know” online did not happen before we could establish a physical attraction.

After that first meeting he must have felt that I was physically attractive as well, as he got my AIM screen name from our mutual friend and we began talking online. I was very happy that we were talking on instant messenger because I was extremely nervous about our conversations. I was visibly on edge and awkward and I would obsess about exactly how I was responding to what he said. McKenna’s factor of interactional control was key to my looking semi socially capable in that situation until I gained the confidence and comfort talking to him that I wouldn’t need to fall back on the computer screen as a shield. I was able to control how he saw me, not including the incessant blushing, and I was able to have more time to craft my responses so that they would be witty and worded perfectly for the first little while. Also, I was able to control how long we talked and how often, because using instant messenger it was much easier to make smooth exits and, unlike with the phone, he wasn’t able to start a conversation unless I chose to be online. This removed the gate feature, another of McKenna’s factors, of my shyness and anxiety talking to him and later I found out that he was even more shy than I was and also was grateful for the time getting to know to each other online. We both were able to look more attractive because the text based conversations allowed for the removal of our anxiety and shyness which may have made our initial conversations feel awkward and been a “deal-breaker”. We were also able to establish Wallace’s factor of common ground. Finding out that we shared the same taste in music and had the same favorite band, for example, increased our attraction and led to our first date, a concert where they would be performing.

As we got closer we used aim less and less in favor of the phone or face to face interactions, but the first stages of our relationship were greatly helped by the leaner medium and the interactional control and removal of gate features.

5 The Best Friend's Boyfriend Test

For this assignment I decided to apply Wallace’s attraction factors to a computer mediated relationship I have had. During one of my trips back home, I visited one of my best friends at her university and met several of the friends she had made there. One of the people I met, John, was her new boyfriend. I wanted to figure out what this new boyfriend was like. After spending a weekend at the university, I friended John on facebook and parted ways. At first my “friend of a friend” and I did not really talk, but one day, I believe around when Kevin Federline released a rap single, I received a message on facebook saying “Popozao!” (the title of the single). This message spurred a conversation, and from there John and I got to know each other online.

The first of Wallace’s attraction factors that explains why I began to accept John is common ground. Common ground refers to mutually shared beliefs, assumptions, and propositions. Specifically, the Law of Attraction states that the proportion of these shared beliefs, assumptions, and propositions leads to attraction. By looking at John’s facebook profile, I immediately got a glimpse into some of these factors, which were elaborated upon as we talked online. I saw that he liked several of the same shows as me, such as Arrested Development, The Office, and 30 Rock. I also saw that he had a similar taste in music, listing artists like The Arcade Fire and Ben Kweller as his favorites. Although I certainly will not go so far as to say we had everything in common, I would say that a good majority of our interests were very similar. The more and more I saw how we were alike, the more I liked him and liked him being my friend’s friend.

Another of Wallace’s attraction factors that explains my acceptance and approval of John is proximity. Proximity refers to the idea that familiarity breeds attraction. Essentially, the more you interact with someone, the more likely you are to be attracted to them. This helps explain why so many people fall in love or become friends with the girl next door, or the boy in class. In terms of computer mediated communication, online familiarity flows from intersection frequency. In other words, how often you interact with someone on the Internet affects the likelihood of an attraction. Since we both frequently were posting on my friend’s (his girlfriend’s) wall, were on AIM, and had our own message thread occasionally, our intersection frequency was relatively high. Since I talked to him often online, I gradually got to know him better and increasingly thought he was a good match for my friend.

Wallace’s attraction factors, specifically common ground and proximity, help account for my approval of my friend’s boyfriend when I really did not know him through face-to-face interactions.

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Assignment 5: Long Distance Friendships (Option 1)

During the spring semester of my freshman year, I began pledging for a sorority. Little did I know that I would meet a sorority sister who would become one of my best friends. The development of our relationship had a slow start. I knew who she was but when I saw her in person, I didn’t talk to her much. Yet, one day when she IMed me, we started to talk about random things and our conversation lasted for over 2 hours. I was shocked that I could chat so long with her online, especially since we didn't talk much prior to talking through instant messaging. I didn't realize how easy it was to self-disclose online versus FtF interaction. In the weeks that followed, we continually talked online and eventually we didn't feel the awkwardness we felt when we talked FtF.

Our IM conversations support McKenna’s relationship facilitation factor about identifiability where the more you identify with someone, the closer you become. The basic idea of the “Stranger on the Train” effect is that you are anonymous, which leads to increased self-disclosure, which then leads to relationship development. It is much easier to self-disclose online because it increases private self-awareness (think about your own thoughts) and also decreases public self-awareness (think about how others think of you). Although, I did not talk to her much when I first met her in person, we had a lot to talk about online. I felt more comfortable to self-disclose personal information and beliefs. It was a simple form of exchange where I disclosed something about myself and then she would disclose something about herself. We talked about interests and realized we shared similar tastes in music and movies. We talked about our families and found that we both were very family-oriented. These similarities in our tastes and beliefs lead to McKenna’s relationship factor, connecting to similar others, which supports the common ground principle. The idea is that it’s easy to identify with similar interests and it allows people to connect across space and time. It makes sense because if two people share interests they have more to talk about than two people who have totally different interests and beliefs.

When my friend and I met, my friend was already a senior about to graduate, so our relationship developed into a long distance friendship. At first, we communicated via computer-mediated communication and through the phone. Since I spend a lot of time online, we found it convenient to talk online rather than on the phone. However, CMC has its setbacks such as lacking verbal and visual cues so we decided to get webcams and now we use Skype to talk to each other at least once a week to catch up on each other’s lives. Using videoconferencing through Skype has allowed us to see and verbally talk to each other. This supports Wallace’s attraction factor, proximity. Using the webcam to communicate rather than just AIM or on the phone has allowed us to feel like we are physically close to one another. Online familiarity flows from intersection frequency where the more we can see each other through videoconferencing, chat through instant messaging, and talk on the phone, the closer we feel like our friendship is being maintained.

The long distance friendship my friend and I share supports McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors, identifiability and connecting to similar others, and Wallace’s attraction factor, proximity.

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-option-2-will-you-marry-me.html

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-option-2-is-this-man.html

Assignment 5. Facebook friends = love?

I have recently been involved in an internet-mediated friendship with someone I met online from my hometown.

The friendship has grown from a bunch of random encounters, most of which can be attributed to Wallace's Proximity/Familiarity theory. Wallace says you become friends/lovers with people you see frequently, and the major factor at work here is intersection frequency - how often you run into a person, specifically on the Internet.

The first encounter with "Kate" came on Facebook (big surprise, right?) She added me as a friend after she joined a group that I was the creator of. The group was something involving our high school (my alma mater, her current school). This group had a topic that was familiar to us both, and created something in common. We began talking through Facebook messages, and then eventually switched over to Instant Messenger. I learned that she doesn't live from me, and that her brother was on a baseball team I helped coach this summer; both leading to familiarity/proximity. Also, she went to the same elementary, middle and high schools as me (she is a couple years younger which explains the lack of previous interaction). Our real life proximity also breeds an interest in each other because as Wallace puts it "nearness makes you expect - and anticipate - future interaction." This is 100% true, because everyday that I go to my former high school to help coach soccer I hope to be able to see her in person and to connect face to face.

The second of Wallace's Attraction theories at work here is Humor. Through chatting with Kate online, I have come to realize that we have a very similar sense of humor. We are both very sarcastic and we both jokingly take jabs at each other. This sense of friendliness can really help comfort and relax the conversation, and I know that's how I feel when talking to her. Our interaction also has a sort of convoluted, slightly altered version of Wallace's "You Like Me, I Like You, You Like Me More" Spiral. Here, Wallace says that when someone likes you, you tend to like them back. In my case, it wasn't that she liked me that made me contact her through a Facebook message, it was that she made the first "move" by adding me as a friend. What I mean by this is that it was less awkward to initiate a conversation with her because she was the one that initiated the relationship. Thus it wasn't a "You Like Me So I Like You" situation, it was more of a "You added me as a friend so it's not awkward to talk to you" type of deal. To me it made a big difference that she initiated the relationship, because if I had added her as a friend and then I began messaging her, I would seem random and possibly creepy; since she started the contact, it was more acceptable for me to strike up a conversation. Her adding me was almost like her saying "I like you", which made me think "I like you too" by messaging her.

So as you can see many of Wallace's Attraction theories are at work here, and I feel they pertain very accurately to what is taking place. I find myself looking forward to talking with Kate everyday, and I can tell there is some sort of attraction happening. Hopefully the positive mediated communication will lead to future face to face communication.

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assignment 5, Abroad with McKenna

I was abroad last semester in Australia, and due to different mediated forms of communication I am sure the experience is much different than it was 20 years ago. Looking back, I realize that McKenna's factors of relationship facilitation all came into play at the time and now, especially now that I am halfway around the world from people I got to spend so much time with and know so well. Through Facebook in particular McKenna's factors, specifically getting the goods and connecting to similar others, helped me and the other international students figure out what we had in common with who and it also facilitated how to keep in touch.

First and foremost, since I did not plan my trip abroad with any of my friends, once I found out who was going abroad from here I may or may not have done a little facebook stalking. Luckily no one had their security settings too high because I got to look at their profiles and see one of them was actually good friends growing up with one of my good friends here at school, it was just weird we had never met. This led to us getting our friend to facilitate a meeting at the end of fall semester and let us keep in touch during the winter break before heading abroad.

Once we got abroad, by keeping in touch over winter break we had already figured out we had a lot in common (connecting to similar others), so now we had a foundation heading to a completely foreign country and having to meet new people. Early on there were a lot of international student activities and events for the international students to meet each other, so of course I was meeting a lot of new faces in a short amount of time. This interaction was way easier when someone I had just met would friend me, or I’d be on facebook and I’d look at the profile of some I just met. Getting the goods was pretty key in seeing who I would keep in touch with after meeting them that first week. Since there were so many international students and so few of us lived on campus (I was one of the lucky ones), I knew I was going to have my on campus friends and it wouldn’t be a problem due to proximity, but as to who I kept in touch with off campus had as much to do with the first impressions I got from the brief interactions at the bars where we’d meet at functions as with the next impressions I got from people looking at their facebook accounts and comparing interests. Coincidently, the people I keep most in touch with are either the ones I have the most shared interests with or the ones with the funniest profiles. There I go again, connecting to similar others.

5: No Spark in a (Mostly) Online Relationship

The summer before freshman year was a very awkward time period in terms of meeting people through computer-mediated means. I’m a junior now, but I remember back then when my still-mysterious classmates would instant message me initiating in forced conversation hoping to get a head start on making friends. Only one of these electronic correspondences turned into anything really interesting—a series of intense AIM conversations and… one date.

The subject of this relationship, who will be referred to as Jane, initiated contact with me a few weeks before classes started through a Facebook message complementing me on my music interests (and this was freshman year, where my “Favorite Music” display was showy and expansive). The obvious attraction factor presented by Wallace in this situation is common ground. Jane initiated contact based upon our shared tastes; putting faith in the belief that we’d get along because we enjoy listening to similar bands and artists. In relation to McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors, we both believed we were “connecting to similar others”. This was the key element of our relationship. All our initial conversations would begin on the subject of our music tastes and things would flow from that point.

I believe Wallace’s physical attraction factor is irrelevant here because Jane was able to see my face in my profile picture—the sequence of attraction was not reversed. Proximity and disinhibition effects soon set in as the amount we exchanged instant messages increased. As freshman year started, we talked more and more (still only online, probably because neither of us wanted to make the first move to make first face-to-face contact) and I became more attached to Jane and felt more comfortable in my conversations. In terms of disinhibition effects, we certainly became more intimate in our conversations (talking about each others past relationships, etc)—Jane became so open about herself that I started to feel intimidated, and decided it was about time we met in person.

In terms of McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors, interactional control was very careful when taking steps from CMC to FTF. All our plans to eventually do dinner and a movie were made via a combination of synchronous IMs and asynchronous Facebook messages. Additionally, I have to admit to some “getting the goods” by searching Jane on Google (don’t remember what information I retrieved—I don’t think it was too important) and I gave her profile more than a few glances before the big meeting. When we met things were pleasant, but very quiet—in person, making eye contact, we couldn’t quite match the deep, intense conversations we had online. The hyperpersonal aspect of each others lives was removed and I guess we just seemed less interesting to one another. Of course, many couples have met online and experienced the “spark” of romance in real life—but perhaps there are certain qualities that cannot be recognized through attraction and relationship facilitation factors that occur online.

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5 - The Perfect Friend Who I Never Met

David Owens, an American artist, said, “there is a powerful tension in our relationship to technology. We are excited by egalitarianism and anonymity, but we constantly fight for our identity.” Owens hits the nail right on the head regarding how we strive for the anonymity that computer mediated communication provides, but that we use that same anonymity to disclose our identity. One of the best and scariest relationships I ever had was with my old best friend’s x-boyfriend. When she moved away, I somehow ended up talking to her boyfriend of her new home on the Internet and continued to even after they broke up. Oddly, Alan provided the companionship I needed because of the relationship we had as a result of the factors that facilitate computer-mediated communication relationships.

McKenna describes one relationship facilitation factor to be identifiably. The part of this term that I am going to focus on states that the more anonymity in a relationship, the more self-disclosure and therefore the greater relationship development. Even though Alan and I new each other’s names and where each other lived, the details about our families and friends as well as our activities were a mystery to one another. As a result, we could confide in each other things about our friends, family and feelings with out worrying that the other would tell someone. Because we were able to connect on this deeper level and acted as each other’s diaries, just diaries that could talk back and offer advice, we began to depend on each other as a way to relieve stress and found comfort in each other’s company. The fact that we never even talked on the phone or met face-to-face allowed us to be open and honest, free of convictions.

Another relationship facilitation factor McKenna describes is the removal of gating features. This means that in computer-mediated communication, the gates that can allow people in or keep people out including physical attractiveness and master status cues do not exist. If Alan and I had first met in person, we might have never formed a relationship either because we might not have been attracted to one another or we might have formed a stigma on the other based on their race, status or even a disability. Honestly, I feared actually meeting him face-to-face because it would have completely thrown off the foundation of our relationship. The Internet allowed us to have a relationship solely based on what’s inside and not on our outward appearances. Dangerous or not, having Alan to confide to during that first year of high school was comforting because he could offer a friendship that no one else could: a judgeless one.

Assignment 5, Option 1

When thinking about what to write about for this assignment, I realized that McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factors played a role in my last relationship. My boyfriend and I met briefly at a party, and afterwards he found me on MySpace (it was high school). This would refer to the Identifiability factor, because we were able to see each other’s friends and pictures, so it was not quite as anonymous and made self-disclosure easier. Once we started talking more, whether it was through Instant Messenger or over the phone, the factor of connecting to similar others came into play. We went to different high schools, but after talking we realized we had a lot of common ground. We knew a lot of the same people and had been to the same parties and somehow never met. “Getting the goods,” which refers to getting information about a person prior to meeting them, was also a factor in this relationship, because between MySpace and talking online, we were able to find out a lot of information about each other before our first date (especially since he took forever to finally ask me out).
When we continued the relationship long-distance into our freshman year of college, the same factors played a role in how our relationship went, as well as Interactional Control, because we were both able to choose which medium of communication to use, and better control the conversation. The best example of this that comes to mind is that almost every time we got mad at each other, we argued about it over Instant Messenger rather than over the phone. On the one hand, we were less inhibited and said how we really felt, but it was much easier for messages to get misunderstood and situations to get blown out of proportion, and quickly led to the end of the relationship (which happened over the phone, another example of interactional control).
Although McKenna’s Relationship Facilitator Factors were not enough to maintain a long-distance relationship for my previous boyfriend and I, they definitely made our first meeting and early stages of the relationship more comfortable.

5 OPTION 1 McKenna's Factors

McKenna has five relationship facilitation factors: identifiabliity, removal of gating features, interactional control, connecting to similar others, and getting the goods. Two of these factors played a major role in my relationship with my boyfriend freshman year of college. The first factor that played a major role in this relationship was getting the goods. Getting the goods is finding out information about someone online before actually meeting him or her. I met my future boyfriend at a fraternity party, and that is where he asked for my number. I gave him my number, but before he had a chance to call me, I went to my dorm that night and looked up his profile on facebook. I discovered a lot of information about this boy from his facebook profile. For example, I found out he played a sport at Cornell, I found out his favorite music and movies, and I also found out where he was from. I believe this is a perfect example of McKenna’s relationship facilitation factor called “getting the goods.” Although I had a brief encounter with this boy before I stalked his facebook profile, getting the goods definitely applies. The second of McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors that played a major role in this relationship was interactional control. Interactional control is when you use selective self-presentation. During winter break, I went home to Wisconsin and my boyfriend at the time stayed on the east coast. During these five weeks apart, we used selective self-presentation when communicating through text messages, phone calls, email, and instant message. For example, when I had a really exciting day with numerous interesting events, I would call my boyfriend or write him an email. When I had boring or uneventful days, I would send him a text message. If I was in a really good mood I would call him, but if I was in a bad mood only send a text message. Since I never saw my boyfriend using any of these forms of communication, I never worried about how I looked when we did communicate.

5, option 1.

The relationship I have with my parents moved from eighteen years of constant face-to-face communication to instant computer-mediated communication last year. The transition was rocky at first, but through combining several mediums it became stable again. The new laptop I bought for school had a webcam, which made me think that this may be a great new way to communicate with my parents. I thought I might be able to set up a time where we could we could all be at a computer at the same time just to say hi and catch up for a few minutes, so I bought my mom a webcam for her old computer. This form of communication failed; she never even figured out how to install it. Even if technicalities weren’t the first issue, I’m sure I would have begun to regret the gift.
Now into my second year at Cornell, I have pretty much mastered the ways in which to communicate with my parents. The most important thing is the medium in which I choose to talk to them. Usually when I’m having a great day, I will pick up the phone and call them. If they’re lucky, maybe I will even leave a cheery voicemail. On the other hand, if I am avoiding the issue of my latest pre-lim grade, I tend to revert to text message to lighten the blow. This selective self-presentation is represented by Interactional Control in McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factors. In choosing my medium, I am better able to control the outcome or mood of the conversation. E-mails are also a great choice that I often resort to instead of a phone call. I recently began attaching pictures from selective weekend excursions, just to enhance the medium.
In addition to Interactional Control, I found that the factor Connecting to Similar Others also applies to my mediated relationship with my parents. Because I had already established a good relationship with my parents before I moved across the country for school, it made the transition much easier. They understand that I tend to get overwhelmed balancing academics and sports, so they don’t get too upset if I forget to call or if I can’t talk for long. This type of relationship would be hard to maintain if we had not had eighteen years to establish this “common ground,” that is emphasized by McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factors.

5. online networking through www.last.fm

New Note 4

Ahoy

So since I listen primarily to Spanish music, I have found that it's considerably difficult to find people that listen to the same music as me.

However, there are some amazing resources that one can use in order to share music with other people online. Of particular greatness is a website called www.last.fm. This website tracks (almost voyeuristically) the tracks that you listen to on your computer and sends the metadata to the server. Then the server arranges your tracks, ranks them by most-listened-to artists, albums, tracks, etc. and displays these charts on your homepage.

What's great about last.fm is that it also analyzes the music that other people listen to and finds your musical "neighbors," therefore connecting you with people that listen to the same music.

Naturally, a lot of Spanish people have gotten in touch with me through last.fm and have noted how strange it is that someone who lives in the US listens to so much Spanish music (note that your nationality is also made known on last.fm). I have gotten into deeper communication with a number of people that I have met through last.fm.

I really don't enjoy giving out my MSN to them because I know that I'm never really going to talk with them. I personally find it difficult to talk with someone that I don't have any physical relation to because it's difficult for me to understand and grasp their personality through such a "cueless" medium. Nevertheless, I have in a few occasions given it out to them and I've maybe talked with one person I met through last.fm outside of the website.

Our relationship formed on two obvious factors - proximity and common ground.

In terms of proximity, our relationship forms because we enjoy listening to the same artists and when we look at the top fans of an artist on last.fm, we tend to see the same people over and over again because they listen to similar music. The fact that we see each other so frequently in artist lists online definitely facilitates familiarity with other people on the internet. Since we see them several times on these spaces, we identify with them more and are more likely to make an attempt to contact them. The neighbor feature is especially conducive to this effect. When we see people on our profile in our neighbor list, we are immediately attracted to them. And when we see them over many weeks, we really start to feel proximity to these people. The affirmation from a third party that there is definitely common ground creates a proximal attraction between two people on last.fm (and the internet in general).

On the second criterion, common ground, it is obvious that we share the same interests in music. Since we like the same music, we get an opportunity to share what we like and introduce others to new artists. This opens the floodgates of online communication. Shortly from talking about Spanish music, talk turns to that of culture and personal lives. We exchange the details of our academic and social lives and compare them to life in our own countries. All this communication is facilitated by our common ground. Since we associate with each other, our guards lower a lot so we feel much more comfortable talking to them because we feel like we know them a lot better.

5, Option 2: You've Got Mail

You've Got Mail—the three words that AOL users are all too used to—is the title of the 1998 film which although fiction, clearly describes an online relationship which can be analyzed. The plot consists of two main characters, Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox, who originally met in an over-30 chatroom and proceeded to communicate constantly through the asynchronous channel of e-mail. In effort to conceal personal information which may reveal their identities, Shopgirl and NY152 (their screennames) acted as the basis of their identities. The twist is that these characters who were so attracted to each other online happened to be business competitors/enemies in person (Joe's “Fox Books” superstore put Kathleen's “Shop Around the Corner” bookstore in danger of closing). To sum up a 2 hour movie, Joe finds out that his online companion is Kathleen (his competitor) while she has no idea. The story unfolds until he eventually discloses who he is and their online relationship turns face-to-face successfully with a kiss.

Throughout the movie there doesn’t seem to be much online deception occurring. Although neither character shared that they had a significant other in their “offline life,” since they had decided not to share personal details neither of them intentionally tried to create a false belief in one another regarding this issue. The fact that Joe and Kathleen didn’t seem to lie in their e-mails supports the Media Richness Theory. This theory states that as richness decreases, the amount of deception would decrease since individuals will choose to use a richer medium for deceptive communication.

Wallace’s (1999) attraction factors which consist of physical attraction, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition effects can be used to analyze the success of the online relationship described in this movie. The common ground factor mentions that individuals are attracted to those whom they share beliefs or attitudes with. Therefore, it makes sense that Kathleen and Joe began e-mailing regularly after realizing that they both loved books, music, and New York (interests that aligned them on a categorical basis). The Law of Attraction mentions that the greater the proportion of these mutual beliefs and attitudes, the greater the attraction. In CMC, individuals frequently know less about each other than they would if they were speaking FtF. Therefore, these three similarities which they found represented a large proportion of likeness, leading them to believe they are very similar.

The proximity factor emphasizes that the more familiar individuals are with one another, the more attracted to each other they may be. Online, familiarity is based on intersection frequency or how often individuals come across one another on the Internet. In this particular situation, since the characters were both using AOL and checked their e-mail frequently, they could keep in contact easily by simply replying to one another’s e-mail.

Wallace targets physical attractiveness as possibly the most important variable for relationships and interpersonal attraction. While in FtF, people first are attracted to another by physical appearance and then proceed to get to know them, in CMC individuals get to know each other first and then eventually may judge one’s physical attractiveness when a face-to-face meeting comes up. While waiting to meet Kathleen for the first time face to face, Joe exemplified this point by revealing to his friend: "this woman is the most adorable creature I've ever been in contact with, if she turns out even to be as good looking as a mailbox, I'd be crazy not to turn my life around and marry her." This quote clearly portrays the idea that he is already completely attracted to Kathleen and her appearance is not of high priority at all anymore.

Lastly, disinhibition effects relate to the intensification loop which is found in the hyperpersonal model. As the relationship between Kathleen and Joe developed and more e-mails were written to one another, there was increased self-disclosure. Both characters moved from sharing random thoughts and experiences (e.g. seeing a butterfly in the subway) to sharing deep feelings (e.g. Kathleen deeply missing her deceased mother). As more information was disclosed by one, the other would disclose more information as well, leading to a greater sense of openness.


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Assignment 5, Option 1

My girlfriend and I have been dating since our senior years in high school. Though a mutual friend introduced us to each other, we text-messaged each other frequently in the weeks leading up to our first official date. Though this form of mediated-communication-technology, my girlfriend and I expedited the beginning stages of our relationship. Referring to McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factors, my girlfriend and I both benefited from interactional control and removal of gating features; and, in light of Wallace’s research on interpersonal attraction, we engaged in Disinhibition Effects understood by the Hyperpersonal Model.
Through the use of text-messaging and later Instant Messages, my girlfriend and I selectively managed our self-presentations. In what McKenna phrases “interactional control,” we dwelled on our impression management through the use of cognitive re-allocation, behavioral confirmation, and other parts of the Hyperpersonal Model. Additionally, through the use of text-messages and instant messages, we benefited from what Mckenna calls the “Removal of Gating Features.” Though we had already met each other in a face-to-face situation, we were still getting to know each other, and thus fully-absorbed in our respective self-presentations. As such, we benefited from mediated forms of communication, because it enabled us to worry less about our physical attractiveness, and focus more on the aspects of our self-presentations that we could control, such as humor and suaveness. Given at the time of our courtship, Facebook was not a widely used networking tool, my girlfriend and I could not benefit from what McKenna phrases, “Getting the Goods,” which is retrieving information about each other prior to meeting in a face-to-face interaction. Regardless, through the use of mediated-communication, we ultimately benefited greatly from interactional control and removal of gating features. Additionally, in what Wallace phrases, “Disinhibition Effects,” my girlfriend and I were more confident, and ultimately less inhibited through the use of mediated-communication. Using many of the Hyperpersonal processes, such as re-allocation of cognitive resources and selective self-presentation, we said things we perhaps would not have said in a face-to-face situation, which ultimately expedited our relationship.
Since senior year, my girlfriend and I have been in a long-distance relationship, as we go to colleges in different states. With hardly any face-to-face interaction, excluding breaks and summers, we have relied on various forms of mediated communication. Though we both decided to refrain from the use of video conferencing, thinking that it would be too frustrating, we have used virtually every other communication medium available. Talking on the phone, text messaging, writing e-mails, and occasionally writing letters, we continue to control our interactions, and “remove gate-features,” but not nearly as much as we did when we were beginning our relationship. This is definitely due to the facts that we are more comfortable with each other, and in a more mature relationship than ever before.

5.1 AIM chatting was just the start

For this assignment I analyzed a special relationship I have with a girl here at Cornell; lets call her K. During the beginning phases of my relationship with K, I was scared to mess it up and so I used a lot of AIM chatting and facebook messaging. Through this mediated communication I was able to develop a healthy relationship with K and was able to get to know her better. After learning about McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors, I knew that Identifiability and Removal of gating features assisted the development of my relationship with K

Identifiability is a mean for more self disclosure over a CMC media which eventually leads to a better relationship development. One can be identifiable or anonymous and both of these factors will lead to higher self disclosure. Over CMC, when you have visual anonymity, you are able to have a high private self-awareness and low public self-awarness, which facilitate in increasing self disclosure. In my case, since I knew K and had her as my facebook friend, I was more identifiable and this lead to more self disclosure, which in turn, enhanced my relationship with her. We were able to have conversations about our facebook interests, friends and even new photos posted. K, being a big facebook fan (a.k.a stalker) definitely spurred my interest in this site and even taught me some new tricks to ‘stalk’. Furthermore, by AIM chatting with K during the first couple of weeks of our relationship, I was able to stay visually anonymous and have better conversations without any awkward pauses.

McKenna’s other relationship facilitation factor, Removal of Gating features, also gave me a chance to improve my relationship. Gates in a relationship can be physical attractiveness, master status cues (race, stigma, disability), and shyness or social anxiety. These ‘gates’ are open to attractive and outgoing people, however, they are closed to less attractive or less socially skilled people. However, in AIM and text based chatting, since you cannot see the other person and cannot observe them interact with peers, these gating features are removed. In my case with K, I was able to be less shy on AIM and could easily avert the awkward pauses by saying ‘brb’ or ‘hold on’. However, since we were both facebook friends and used to live in the same dorm, she already knew what I looked like and how I performed in social situations. My shyness was taken away through AIM chatting and Mckenna’s relationship factor defiantly worked to improve my relationship.

After the couple weeks of AIM conversations, I finally decided to call her and ask her out to coffee. To my surprise she rejected me, and a couple of days later, while I was cursing her off in front of my friends, she called me back and re-scheduled our date. I am glad to say that the first few weeks of AIM chatting helped me break the ice and I was able to have a decent conversation with K.

#5 Option 1: Love at First Type

Love at first sight? No, but through an extensive amount of time online talking to a guy, it slowly developed. The long distance online relationship that I had falls under Wallace’s attraction factors. My junior year of high school, I met this guy through a mutual friend during winter break. We had only met twice then he went back to school in Chicago, while I was still in New Jersey. Our relationship did not end there however, we kept in contact through AIM.

Since I did not really remember what he looked like physically, I started to develop feelings for him through our almost daily conversations online. This goes along with one of Wallace’s factors of attraction, physical attractiveness. Because I found his personality appealing/attractive, I felt that physically he was becoming more and more appealing, which is what Wallace is claiming.

Another factor that played a significant role in this CMC relationship is the proximity aspect that Wallace also addresses. Wallace states that online familiarity flows from intersection of frequency, which I agree with in the fact that because I spoke several hours a day with this guy on AIM daily, if felt as if we were getting to know each other very quickly.

On top of proximity, we had a lot in common. Through conversing with each other, we figured out many mutual friends as well as commonalities in our lifestyles such as similar family backgrounds, similar churches/beliefs, and the same major. All these factors contributed to establishing a common ground, which Wallace also addresses as a factor of attraction.

All these factors contributed to the continuation and development of this long distance online relationship. I thought it was strange at first because I had only met him a couple times in person, but felt as if he were my best friend because of the frequency and the degree of information we shared with one another. I definitely agree with Wallace in that because we spoke so frequently, the attraction had increased quickly as well as having common ground in which in base conversations on and feel as sense of connection with one another.

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5.1 Because I Really, Really Like FreeCell

I had a quasi-long-distance relationship for about two and a half years in high school, as my girlfriend for that time lived a 30-minute drive away in a different area code. The drive meant I could only visit her on weekends, if I was lucky, and phone calls were completely out of the question thanks to my family’s lack of a long distance plan. As a result, virtually all of our interaction that didn’t involve watching television together was conducted over AIM.

At first, this felt weird to me, but after a couple of months, I began to prefer talking on AIM over having the same conversation on a rare phone call. This preference arose for two reasons. One, that I could hold a conversation while doing other stuff, whether it was homework or staring off into space while playing FreeCell, and two, that I could also have a conversation even if I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to her. McKenna’s (2007) theory contains two aspects that apply to me. First, the idea of the removal of gating features facilitates relationship formation and maintenance applies here, but not strictly in the sense we discussed in lecture. We’ve all heard that one of the hardest parts of a truly serious relationship is getting used to being around the same person day and night. I think that the distance of our relationship, combined with our ability to talk casually and not always in person, made for much less pressure and for more interesting conversations as a result.

The other factor of McKenna that applies here is obviously the idea of interactional control. As I’ve already mentioned, I grew to love the fact that I could play a game or watch a movie and pretend to be wildly interested in what she had to say about what the new girl in school wore to class that day. By keeping the conversations in the AIM environment, I was able to control the situations that arose in a strictly text-based medium. I am sure that there were days when she was behaving the same way on her end. I believe that because we were both able to relax and interact more casually, which ultimately probably helped our relationship last as long as it did, a sure sign of relationship maintenance being facilitated by the chosen means of communication.

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5: Option 1 -- More attractive in the MUD.

My first experience with the internet was in 1992, involving a near obsession with a Multi-User Dungeon called Muddog. I wasted many a night over the span of a year and a half as I spent every free moment working on quests and building experience points in an effort to become a wizard. I developed a community of friends on the MUD, several of which I would eventually meet in real life. It was in this space that I met my first serious girlfriend, "Aude." My online romance exemplified several of McKenna's (2007) relationship facilitation factors and demonstrates how Computer Mediated Communication can influence a relationship in ways that Face-to-Face interactions cannot.

This unlikely pairing could have only manifested itself in a CMC environment like the MUD -- a Jewish kid from Chicago and a Baptist girl from southern Georgia with virtually nothing in common except for an invented reality and meaningless gaming adventures together. Of course, at the time these experiences were far from meaningless. Upon first meeting anyone on Muddog, users shared the immediate bond of being committed on some level to logging in and playing this odd game. Both Wallace's Common Ground factor of Attraction as well as McKenna's Connecting to Similar Others is evident here. Both of these emphasize the attraction to those with whom we share something in common. We could all identify with each other having a common obsession. And further, upon first meeting anyone in this environment, the shared interest in playing the game became the only thing that we knew about each other. In accordance with the Law of Attraction (which focuses on the idea that the proportion of what we have in common will lead to attraction and relational development,) it's no surprise that intense relationships were commonly formed on the MUD.

Several other of McKenna's factors are evident in my experience with Aude. The Removal of Gating Features proved to be a very powerful factor as we began our relationship. Gating features are obstacles which can determine whether or not we want to interact with each other. McKenna observes that in text-based online spaces, gates are not so clearly defined. This was absolutely the case with Aude. In retrospect, I'm fairly certain that there would not have been much attraction if we had met for the first time in real life. In this environment you can choose your own description rather than actually see each other, and we clearly showed what we wanted to see. I also believe that we avoided the gate of shyness because the anonymous nature of the game.

The anonymity of mudding brings us to McKenna's Identifiability factor. As was the case with most "mudders," we relished in the fact that nobody knew who we were beyond our character profiles. I'm sure that McKenna would agree that this was conducive to increased self-disclosure, which in turn benefits relational development. This effect probably decreased as we got to know one another and lost our anonymity, but the eventual anticipated FtF meeting kept our motivation high.

Over several months our relationship grew online and we expanded to a richer media of regular telephone conversations. Aude and I eventually met FtF and tried to further the romance, but it was a short matter of time before the relationship ended. It was obvious that our connection didn't go much further than the game, and the experience effectively ended my days as a mudder.

5: Option 1, Long Distance Marriage…on facebook

I confess: I’m one of the not so proud people that has “married” posted on their facebook status but is not actually in a relationship or in a marriage. However, despite the plutonic nature of our bond, having my official facebook wife go to school in Michigan can be a tough task. Two summers ago, we became very good friends and pledged to stay in contact throughout the year. While I expected that we would throw each other a bone with the occasional phone call, I never thought that we would become even closer during the year without ever once meeting face to face. McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors give insight as to why this occurred.

McKenna’s Model outlines various factors that facilitate online relationship formation. Two of these factors include identifiably and removal of gating features. Identifiably refers to how salient your personality is when interacting in a space. Evidence demonstrates that high identifiably and high anonymity both increase the tendency for self-disclosure. Due to the fact that I was already close to my friend, I felt highly identifiable during our phone calls and instant message conversations. During our constant interactions, I experienced a “stranger in the crowd effect” that led me to confide in her intimate details about my life that I would not have felt comfortable sharing during the summer when we lived right next to each other. This led to increased relationship development, as we became closer throughout the year.

The other factor in Mckenna’s model that influenced my relationship formation was the removal of gating features. Gating features are barriers such as physical attractiveness, status, and anxiety that can limit self-disclosure on the face-to-face level. The cues that were filtered out during CMC actually stimulated relationship development due to the fact that it eliminated the anxiety we felt over confiding in one another. For some reason, it seems “less real” when you confide personal details in another person over the internet than when you do it during FTF communication. This is due to the fact that you are unable to see the other person’s judgment of you, which in FTF, can lead to an obvious change in behavior. CMC provides a buffer that eliminates gating features and allows relationships to develop above a purely narcissistic level. In my case, maintaining a long distance relationship led me to believe that the physical attraction that we had towards one another that may have been a catalyst in our amity was not one of the main factors that sustained our close friendship. This caused me to become even more invested and increase self-disclosure.

This past summer, despite seeing my friend every day at work, our closeness actually declined. We both recognized this change and talked about how weird it was that we were closer when we didn’t spend any time together but just worked hard maintaining a long distance relationship. The high expectations we had due to online media facilitating an increase in self-disclosure led to disappointment when we met up again during the summer. In ‘real life’, there are so many other people, more complex situations, and tasks that can distract both parties in a relationship and cause a decline in interpersonal attraction. Despite this decline in our friendship, we are still happily married on facebook.

P.S. On the Bright side, if my facebook marriage doesn't work out, I can always resort to: http://marryourdaughter.biz/

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5 From here to there, we'll be together...atleast for a little while longer

My relationship with a former girlfriend occurred in reverse of the relationships we have been studying in class. We studied relationship factors and theories that allow formation of relationships in online space, which eventually leads to an offline relationship. My relationship started offline, but it ultimately went online. My friend had introduced me to one of his friends and we started going out. About three months after our relationship started, she had to move out of the state. Our means of communication went from seeing each other face to face to talking on the phone, AIM, and through games. Eventually our relationship degraded and we decided to split up, but during the online part of our relationship, Wallace's attraction factors played a key part in at least bring us a little closer together.

The first attraction factor that allowed us to continue our relationship was proximity. The factor is defined essentially as the ability to meet. In the online space, it's determined by intersection frequency, the number of events in which you meet someone in a common online psychological space. My friend who introduced us played a lot of online games. As a result, he would introduce both my former girlfriend and myself to free multiplayer games. This increased our intersection frequency as we met more often in different spaces. As a result, we felt “closer” in proximity to each other. In addition, we always used the phone and AIM to communicate. The frequency of meeting online was greater than when we met face to face. On average, I would meet her about four times a week before she moved. After she moved, we met in common spaces almost every day. The increased proximity allowed us to become more familiar as we saw the same person frequently in a number of intersecting means.

Common ground also played a role in maintaining our relationship. According to Wallace's reasoning of common ground, attraction increases as the proportion of shared attributes increases. When we were physically together, we discovered that we disagreed on a number of points. For example, when we watched movies together, we disagreed on the ratings for it. Her interests for movies differed greatly from mine. However, when our relationship went online, we had less conflicting points. We had less shared experiences that revealed our corresponding opinions of those experiences. Thus, we had less differing opinions, resulting in a larger proportion of common ground attributes. Most of our common ground was found only through events we choose to discuss online, which were far fewer in number than those that occurred to us simultaneously in physical space. According to the Law of Attraction, this greater proportionality created attraction between us.

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5: Option 1 - Meeting through Myspace

I have experienced some long distance relationships, but I wanted to share one of my friend’s experiences because it closely relates to McKenna’s relationship formation model. My friend from home (Houston, TX) recently came out and to become more acquainted with the gay community, she friended other gay people using myspace. Many of Wallace’s attraction factors and McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors played a large role in the development of her online friendships.

In particular, my friend became very close to a girl named “Jane” from Philadelphia. To find Jane, she first searched people by their sexuality, music, and interests. She then filtered them out by their attractiveness according to their profile picture until she finally came across Jane. As seen in Wallace’s common ground principle, which is also similar to McKenna’s connecting to similar others factor, my friend was interested in Jane because of their common interests and the Law of Attraction. Since she saw that they had similar tastes in music and interests, their proportion of shared interests (in that area only) was high. My friend’s searching/profiling of Jane relates to McKenna’s getting the goods factor, in which, before deciding to message her, she analyzed her profile and comments to get a feel for whether she would get along with Jane. From there, they began messaging, IMing, texting, calling, until they finally met in person. Now, they are close friends and frequently travel together. The progress of their relationship completely identifies with McKenna’s relationship formation model in which, there was photo assessment --> survey of attributes --> contact --> (if reciprocal) ftf meeting.

I was amazed at how quickly my friend was able to become so close to Jane, who she had just met on myspace, but what seemed to bring them closer was that they both confided in each other and disclosed very personal information. It was as if my friend had known Jane for a long time because she would constantly talk about Jane and tell me about her coming out story, family problems, relationship dramas, etc. All this information about Jane came about because of Wallace’s disinhibition effect, where there is an increased role of self-disclosure in relational development. The online communication allowed them to share very personal issues with each other and when one party would disclose their secrets, the other party felt the need to impart their secrets as well. Although, I was first very skeptical of her messaging strangers online, her assessments have allowed her to friend and relate to many gay people from across the states.

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Assignment #5, Option 2: Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?

I found an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Is this Man Cheating on His Wife?” Fifty-three-year-old Mr. Ric Hoogestraat is involved with the computer world of Second Life. In this “well-chronicled digital fantasyland,” Mr. Hoogestraat is a young 25-year-old avatar named Dutch Hoorenbeek. He is three-months married to a similarly young and attractive avatar named Tenaj Jackalope, who is controlled in real life by Janet Spielman. However, this virtual marriage is not Mr. Hoogestraat’s only relationship. He has been married to his real wife, Sue, for seven months. Mr. Hoogestraat first participated in Second Life to serve as a distraction after his mother’s death. Diagnosed with diabetes and gall bladder problems several months later, Mr. Hoogestraat spent up to twenty hours a day in Second Life. He eventually met Tenaj in this online world, and their avatars moved in together.

It is important to analyze Mr. Hoogestraat’s online relationship in terms of McKenna’s five relationship facilitation factors. First, Mr. Hoogestraat is able to experience visual anonymity as he sits alone at his computer. This leads to an increased reflection on the self and a simultaneous decreased public self-awareness, which together creates more openness and self-disclosure in his conversations with Tenaj. Second, there is a removal of gating features such as physical attractiveness, status cues, shyness, and social anxiety when in Second Life. These gating features can make it difficult for certain people to form relationships. However, Mr. Hoogestraat was able to hide his actual looks and other gated features, which in turn enhanced his ability to form a relationship with Tenaj. Next, Mr. Hoogestraat also had interactional control in Second Life. He chose specific self-presentation factors in the way that he designed a young, tough avatar. He even paid extra for defined stomach muscles. Also, it was easy for Mr. Hoogestraat to connect with Tenaj in Second Life as it was clear that they both had similar interests because they both participated in the online game and enjoyed its “Vegas-like atmosphere.” McKenna’s final feature is “getting the goods.” Although the article does not explicitly say that Mr. Hoogestraat talked to other avatars to gain information about Tenaj, he certainly had the ability to do so, which could have also helped facilitate their online relationship.

The article made it clear that Mr. Hoogestraat and Tenaj have never spoken on the phone and have no interest in meeting. Yet Mr. Hoogestraat is still deceiving both his real wife and Tenaj to some degree. Sue knew that her husband spent most of his free time in Second Life, but did not know that he was virtually married until she saw it on his computer screen by chance one day. Mr. Hoogestraat plays it off like it’s “just a game,” but in doing so he is still deceiving Sue by keeping an entire part of his life secret from her. Tenaj is also a victim of Mr. Hoogestraat’s deception because she knows little about her virtual husband other than what is on his short online user profile and through their conversations over Second Life instant messages. In terms of the Feature Based Approach, deception is determined by the media features involved. Second Life is near synchronous and distributed, but I think it is recordable due to the description in the article. With two of the three media features, it would be expected that a moderate amount of lying would occur in Second Life. Although Tenaj is an avatar with a separate life in the real world just like her virtual husband, I think Mr. Hoogestraat is still deceiving her in a sense because he is essentially married to two women. Also, it is not clear what about his real life he shares with Tenaj. In terms of Mr. Hoogestraat deceiving Sue, the Social Distance Theory suggests that lying would be most uncomfortable and least likely to occur face-to-face. In contrast to this theory however, Mr. Hoogestraat has continued his deceptive Second Life relationship with Tenaj despite the fact that Sue knows, which I think is one of the most disturbing aspects of the whole article.

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Assignment #5: Option 1

My boyfriend and I had met in the middle of the fall semester last year at a typical fraternity party. We talked for the rest of the party and he ended up asking me out for lunch. I am not one to give out my number easily so I told him to friend me on Facebook then look it up under my profile. I wanted to see how interested this guy really was. Enough time went by for me to assume that he was not interested until he actually called me for a lunch date. We did end up going out to lunch a few times before winter break.

According to McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factors, the fact that we were able to talk for a long time after our legit meeting shows that both of us were able to connect to each other because we shared similar interests (also Wallace’s common ground theory). By telling him to look up my phone number on Facebook, I set him up so I would be able to learn more information about him through his profile prior to our next meeting (McKenna’s “getting the goods” factor).

When we came back to school for the spring semester, I had almost lost complete interest in him because during the five weeks of winter break I only received one text message from him saying “Happy New Years.” He was obviously exhibiting McKenna’s Relationship Facilitation Factor of interactional control by choosing the lean medium of text messaging and controlling that we only interacted once. However, when we were both back on campus he exhibited the opposite interactional control by choosing a richer medium (the telephone) to contact me repeatedly. The increased amount of interaction we were having caused me to become interested in him, once again.

After many months of serious dating in close physical proximity (i.e. both being at Cornell), my boyfriend graduated and went onto graduate school in Florida, thus starting our long-distance relationship. Because of busy summers and the start up of a new school year, both of us again conformed to McKenna’s factor of interactional control. We talked as much as we could in as many mediums as possible for long-distance relationships, such as instant messaging, e-mail and on the phone. We would each choose the medium to interact based on how much time we had available. These mediums allowed for the removal of gating features (McKenna) because we were only interacting with mediated text and voice tone. This allowed me to not have to worry about looking good every time I spoke with him because he could never see me, which can actually be a benefit of long-distance relationships.

Comment 1 and Comment 2

Assignment 5, Option 2: Will you marry me?

I turned to my beloved New York Times website to find an article about an online relationship. “Getting Hooked on an Online Game, and Getting Hitched to A Fellow Gamer” caught my attention. Flint and Tess, two online characters in the world of Ultima Online, being played by Ms. Sartore and Mr. Morelle, respectively, fell in love online. They met in 1999 and over the course of several months spoke and played online. Ms. Sartore was particularly attracted to Morelle’s compassion—he was kind to all of the people in Ultima, giving the poor ones money or armor and helping whenever someone needed it. Morelle was an employee of the Navy, and was looking to his retirement. With his retirement he also felt it was time to retire from Ultima. Ms. Sartore heard this through a mutual online friend and when she did, blurted to Morelle online “Will you marry me?” She didn’t mean it in the real life sense, but that’s what it eventually led to.

Morelle decided to stay on Ultima and the two continued to get extremely close. So close, that Ms. Sartore flew from her home in Minnesota to Morelle’s home in Seattle, WA. to meet the true life Flint and attend an Ultima users conference. After their real life meeting, their characters married online. Shortly after the virtual wedding, Mr. Morelle virtually asked Ms. Sartore to marry him in real life. They did and the article concludes with the introduction of mutual Ultima virtual friends of Flint and Tess, who too will be married in real life.

From the perspective of the Feature Based Approach, Ultima Online is generally somewhere between synchronous and asynchronous, recordless, and distributed. These features would lead one to believe that a good amount of digital deception is occurring in Ultima between the characters. In this specific case, the contrary was occurring. In the article Mr. Morelle said, “I knew it was getting serious from our online discussions, so our first meeting was so important. No matter what, when you're dealing with a virtual person, you're building up a fantasy in your mind. As soon as I saw Deb, I knew the fantasy matched the reality.” Social Distance Theory, on another hand, takes the opinion that the more interaction in IM and E-mail medias, which are the closest form of media to Ultima, the more one lies. This theory also contrasts with the story of Tess and Flint. The Media Richness Theory best explains what happened between Tess and Flint. The richer the media, the higher the amount of lies being told. Since Ultima is not an extremely rich media, the lies were lacking, and in fact true love was able to blossom.

In this extreme online love example, Wallace’s four factors of a successful online relationship were fulfilled. Since Mr. Morelle and Ms. Sartore met in CMC, they got to know each other first, then looked to physical characteristics. They often interacted in Ultima, which caused them to have a high intersection frequency, which most likely led to some of the initial attractive qualities each partner found in the other gamer. Hours of online conversations, especially after Ms. Sartore initially proposed, must have led the couple to find out much about their similar beliefs and common ground. Lastly, each partner was so disinhibited that they each took a turn asking the other to marry them—one in the virtual world, and one in real life.

From the Media Richness Theory we can understand that a lack in major digital deception can lead to real life relationships that are based on truth. By analyzing Wallace’s four factors, I was able to see how an online relationship can develop and eventually lead to love and marriage. If you’re interested to read the entire article about Tess and Flint: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E6DC143CF933A05750C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Assignment 5, Option 1: Making it to the Top of the Buddy List

I met my best friend, who lives an hour away, through her cousin, who went to my middle school. I met her the summer before I went into high school, and for the beginning of our relationship, we saw each other face to face rather infrequently. I met her in July of that summer, didn’t see her again until October, and so on. Thus, the real development of our relationship came online and, eventually, via the phone. In our case, the combination of McKenna’s “removal of gating features” and the visual anonymity factor of “identifiability,” combined and led to Wallace’s idea of “disinhibition effects.”

McKenna’s removal of gating features is the idea that, in face-to-face communication, physical attractiveness, status cues (such as race), shyness, and social anxiety act as gates to prevent particular people from developing relationships. Furthermore, McKenna asserts that in mediated forms of communication, these gates become less of a factor, if they even matter at all. This is particularly true in my situation. I’m very shy. Additionally, my friend was shy when we first met because she was not familiar with any of us who were her cousin’s friends, while we all knew each other, and she felt out of place. Thus, in our first face-to-face encounter, we barely said a word to each other. As she spoke to me online (at first when she was with her cousin, and then on her own screen name at home), the gating feature of shyness was removed and we were able to speak freely as if we knew each other well. We were both very comfortable with each other early in the relationship.

The removal of gating features coincided with our experience of the visual anonymity concept associated with McKenna’s identifiability factor. With a heightened awareness of myself, and a decreased in thinking about what my communication partner thought of me, I was able to disclose more information about myself, and speak with less restriction.

These two factors combined to create what Wallace refers to as disinhibition effects. Since we felt more at ease, due to the removal of gating features and the increase in visual anonymity, we increased our level of self-disclosure, allowing a fuller version of our personalities to surface, and letting us talk more in depth and cover a broader range of topics.

We quickly discovered what we had in common, what we could learn from each other’s differences, and how much we enjoyed conversing with one another. Our relationship quickly moved from the Internet to the phone, and now we visit each other as often as possible.


http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/09/51-facilitation-of-sin.html

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-option-2-youve-got-mail.html