Hi, my name is Steve Spagnola and I’m a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Economics and Information Science. In the few hours spent out of Uris Library, you can find me at my Fraternity brushing up on Web Design, blasting 80s music, and just having a good time with my friends.
The economist in me has always been interested in the psychology and game theory of initiating communication and friendship online. One of the most obvious examples is one-on-one communication on instant messenger: someone must initiate the conversation. Assuming each person has the others’ screen name and is aware the other friend is online, we have an interesting two-player, two-strategy game. At any given point in time before the chat is initiated, each person makes an active decision to initiate the chat or to ignore the other person. The chat begins when one of the two players chooses to initiate.
We can assume the initiator wants to chat with the other, but what about the receiver who chooses to ignore the other? Was the receiver about to initiate the chat while the initiator beat him or her to the punch? Does the receiver want to chat, but not enough to go through the effort of initiating the chat? Is the receiver busy doing something else and wants to chat at a different time? Or does the receiver dislike the initiator, and never wants to chat? As the chat continues, the initiator is able to gauge which of the four possibilities is true, and possibly reformulate his or her strategy in initiating the chat with this person in the future. In this sense the receiver may also alter his or her future strategies, as a good chat may sway the receiver to become the initiator the next time.
In the chatting example we assumed the initiator wants to chat, revealing this small fact to the receiver. However, Facebook frienders have different reasons and incentives to friend request people, clouding the information given from the initiator to the receiver. Facebook friending has many meanings depending on who makes the friend request. Does the initiator like the receiver, does the initiator want to become better friends with the receiver, or is the initiator one of the people who friend requests everyone? This perceived information from the initiator adds a twist to the game, where the initiator and receiver may hold conflicting interpretations of the motives behind the first move. While such complexities don’t have a large effect in reality, they are unavoidable psychological inferences arising from the game of making the first move.
The chatting example lies in the online space of a synchronous chat, while Facebook friending is a little more complicated and most closely resembles a MUD. Instead of slaying dragons with people via a text line, Facebook acts as a MUD through an asynchronous forum. It utilizes the same virtual interactions as MUDs do (like friending, poking, and wall posting) through a static, HTML medium rather than via synchronous text.
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4 comments:
I'm glad someone finally documented the inner turmoil which plagues our daily lives. Especially when romantic interests are involved, the speed at which interactions are initiated and sustained on the Internet are of paramount importance.
Some food for thought: perhaps you could consider the ways in which people initiate conversations online. I know from my own experiences that many people consider "Hi" to be a very cold greeting whereas "Hey" is considered much warmer. In addition to who makes the first move, think about how.
Marli makes a really good point here about the differences between “Hi” and “Hey” in an online setting. What is also interesting, and I think what makes initiating a chat a different experience from adding a friend on Facebook is the sheer degree of involvement in the interaction. A chat is still a relatively social exercise, in the ways you describe, Steve, with the deciding to initiate and then whether to accept or ignore. Both forms are much less involved than a real conversation, where getting ignored or put off can be both embarrassing and occasionally cause emotional pain. With the action of friending, however, the stresses of potential rejection are so separated from each individual that the decision to initiate or accept is actually easier because there is less risk of actual, real-life repercussions from a Facebook rejection.
Thanks for writing about the psychology behind online social interactions. I think you could add to your ideas by exploring the amount of information that is lost with any text-based communication (vs. face-to-face), and the wrong inferences that can result.
It can start to go downhill before the conversation actually starts, if one person initiates and the other person is not actually at there (although they appear to be available), the initiator may believe they are being ignored. If the recipient does not respond in time, the initiator can leave with an incorrect impression. Once the recipient responds, as Marli and Spencer have pointed out, different greetings can give entirely different impressions, and result in another inference. Beyond the different ways that messages can be interpreted, There are certain aspects of face-to-face communication, like body language, which can give each participant clues about where the conversation is going. While certain clues do exist in textual conversation, they are rarely as concrete as in face-to-face conversation and can often be taken the wrong way.
Breaking down online social interaction can get pretty complicated, but I think you started it the right way, given your limitation on length. It’s also good that you used current online realms as examples because online socialization is continually changing.
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