One relationship I can recall that started online and left virtuality is about a friend’s youth pastor. This youth pastor was very into the blogging site xanga.com and would like any another person, click on blogs of friends of friends who commented on each other’s posts. Somewhere down the line he came across his future wife’s xanga site (though he did not know it at the time). He thought her entries were very well written, amusing, and interesting. The youth pastor decided to comment on her post and that was the start of their online relationship. They would frequently read each other’s posts and comment. As time went on, they also started to use other types of CMC such as email and AIM which have more cues. I am not sure how long this online relationship lasted, but it was a significant amount of time. They finally decided to meet FTF after they felt that they had gotten to know each other fairly well. When they met in person, they got along very well and were attracted to each other. Long story short, they ended up getting married and are as of now, living happily ever after.
For this story, I would say that the Uncertainty Reduction Theory applies well. The URT states that the uncertainty reduction process leads to affinity or attraction and predicts positive outcome for leaving virtuality. I do not think there can be a dispute that getting married to a person you met online and ended up marrying that person is not a positive outcome. The couple definitely had plenty of time to exchange information as well as interact through chatting and emails which led to greater intimacy with one another through CMC. When they finally did meet, they felt the attraction just by the sheer fact that they knew so much about each other. They spent a lot of “time” with one another online as well as got to know how the other thought by reading each other’s xanga posts which are essentially journal entries. Because of this, I also believe that SIP could be applied to this relationship though the findings may suggest that SIP is not a good predictor of leaving virtuality. Nevertheless in the above case, SIP did in fact accurately predict that there would be a positive outcome from the online relationship that this married couple had.
Comments:
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-o-crap.html
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-playing-middle-man-to-make-people.html
2 comments:
Hi Grace,
Nice post. I think your story about the youth pastor was really interesting. It is fascinating to read that such a thing like blogging can lead to the start of something great. I know several people who used to blog on Xanga and used to have favorite blogs that they would read and comment on. This story also goes against Ramirez and Wang’s theory that after long term relationships, due to the high violation of expectations, there will be a negative outcome for that relationship. However, when the youth pastor met his wife they did not violate the expectations about each other and decided to stay together.
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