I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that about 2 ½ years ago, I was one of the anxious Cornell pre-frosh who tried to make some new friends a little early on—online that is. In one particular instance, I decided to send a guy “Joe” a Facebook message since it seemed like we had very similar taste in music based on our profiles. Through ongoing messages we spoke about the Dave Matthews Band concerts that we were planning on attending that summer and other music related topics. Although we planned on meeting up at Cornell, our relationship never ended up leaving virtuality until 8 months later—the day before I left to go home for the summer. I went to go say goodbye to a friend, and sitting in her room was a guy that looked strangely familiar. Sure enough, I was introduced to Joe “from the football team.” Although it was clear that we both recognized each other, we both pretended like we never shared our online interactions. In a weird way, I was disappointed by our face-to-face encounter since my online perception of Joe was that he was more interested in music than sports and meanwhile my friend chose to classify him as a football player.
Walther’s (1997) Hyperpersonal Model could be applied to my situation in order to explain why I had a negative face-to-face experience after leaving the virtual world. The Hyperpersonal Model explains how certain aspects of CMC lead us to form exaggerated perceptions of those who we interact with. Within this model, selective self-representation refers to the idea that in CMC individuals are in control over what characteristics they make available to others. Joe’s “favorite music” took up most of his profile, leading me to believe that he had a passion for music and it was one of the main things that defined him as a person. He chose to leave out other aspects of himself, such as his passion for football and his status as a member of a varsity team at Cornell. Furthermore, the over-attribution process refers to the idea that in CMC individuals may form an exaggerated impression of others based on the few things they know about the other individual. The music that Joe listed on his profile and the Facebook groups he decided to join was what lead me to form my impression of Joe: a laid back, friendly, concert enthusiast.
Online, Joe and I were able to carefully choose what we wanted to say to one another and spoke about the music we knew we were both interested in. However, face-to-face we had little to say to one another as two Cornell students who never crossed paths throughout our whole freshman year—especially since the Joe I had anticipated was hidden behind a football jersey.
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