11 Freshman FtF

The obvious choice for a discussion on modality-switching in interactions and long- and short-term assessments is that of the interaction with one’s freshman-year roommate before actually arriving on campus. So that’s what I did. When I received my roommate assignment in the mail over two years ago, the first thing I did was look up Andrew on Facebook and friend him, without any hesitation. As it turned out, he wasn’t very big on the whole Facebook phenomenon and so our CMC interaction was somewhat limited, but we did talk enough for me to generate what I felt was an appropriate evaluation of Andrew as a person.

I would estimate that Andrew and I spent about two months prior to freshman year interacting sparsely in the CMC environments of Facebook and, even rarer, instant messaging. Based on this interaction, I had an idea of Andrew as a funny, sarcastic, and for the most part quiet person with the traditional Bostonian passion for the Red Sox. When we finally got to school and had a chance to really get to know each other in person, it turned out that my assessment had been pretty on target, with a few exceptions. He was in fact funny and sarcastic, and he did indeed have Red Sox fever, but what I got completely wrong was how he functioned in a social setting. He was very outgoing, and, despite his occasionally-off sense of humor, made friends very easily. Always eager to strike up a conversation about even the most inane of topics, he was very social and not at all quiet and shy like I had interpreted from our interactions in CMC.

I feel that my assessment’s inaccuracy represents a similar effect to what Ramirez & Wang found. Specifically, it fits with their finding that short-term online associations, when switched to the FtF modality, lead to a more positive evaluation of the social information available. Where before I found my future roommate quiet and somewhat apprehensive/apathetic in a CMC environment, I after found him to be outgoing and energetic, a much more positive evaluation of the social information I had to work with. My uncertainty about what it would be like to live with Andrew was also reduced as per Ramirez & Wang because I had much more reliable information about his personality and behavior from FtF interactions, rather than CMC ones.

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-take-me-down-to-disappointment-city.html

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-whos-ani-difranco.html