For this assignment I decided to look back on an online relationship I formed before coming to Cornell. Like many students in the Facebook-era, I friended various students a few weeks before leaving for orientation that were coming to Cornell from my area, or who would be living in my dorm, or, as in this case, had very similar interests as myself. After we exchanged a few messages, poked each other, and wrote on walls, we had established somewhat of a relationship. And honestly, I liked him. I was really looking forward to this cool, funny guy that had a pretty good taste in movies. A few weeks after I came to Cornell and got settled in, we decided to meet up at Appel for dinner. I was amazed at how different a person can appear online compared to face-to-face. He wasn’t especially awkward or anything, he just had this quality about him that I absolutely can’t stand – he thought he was really funny when he wasn’t. He laughed at his own jokes, which we were constant, and bad at that. On top of that, the couple of favorite movies that we shared, was pretty much it. He hadn’t even heard of The Office, which is pretty much unforgivable in my book. Overall, I was disappointed with our face-to-face meeting based on our online interactions.
I would say that my experience makes a lot of sense in terms of the hyperpersonal model. During our computer-mediated conversations, visual and sound cues are eliminated; thus, I never had to undergo his excessive laughing at his own jokes. Also, he is able to spend more time choosing his words and could steer the conversation away from topics he didn’t know much about, which again affected my opinion of him. I only saw the best of him, resulting in an exaggerated opinion of him. I’m sure I came off similarly to him, and I don’t know if I was as much of a disappointment, but we haven’t really spoken since besides an awkward hello every now and then.
The timing of our relationship played a definite role in the modality switch. I would classify our relationship online as long-term, especially when compared to the brevity of our face-to-face relationship. This makes sense according to Ramirez and Wang’s research results. This study showed that “[p]articipants evaluated the social information more positively and uncertainty-reducing following short-term on-line associations but more negatively and uncertainty-provoking following long-term ones compared to remaining online.” In other words, I spent so long talking to this boy that I formed grossly positive opinions of him. I was almost bound for disappointment, but don’t worry, I haven’t turned my back on Facebook yet.
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3 comments:
Hey Eden, your post is a quite nice read and thoroughly analytical. It seems so many of us on this blog have had these freshman-facebook-hyperpersonal relationships that I’m starting to wonder whether anyone on this blog is writing about someone else on this blog (if that makes any sense). Your explanation of the development of the hyperpersonal impressions that you developed is very descriptive—and I also like your point about sound cues being eliminated which did not allow you to hear his obnoxious laughing at his own jokes. How could anyone possibly foresee that? And you did a nice job in using the hyperpersonal model as well as Ramirez and Wang’s research in analyzing your experience. I can’t believe he didn’t even like The Office…
Hey Eden,
So I really think I consistently comment on your blogs which is kind of ironic. Anyways, good job! I must admit that I had a similar experience, as I am realizing most incoming freshman do. But I think that your reflection on the hypersonal model theory is right on the nose here. I think that there definitely is reduced breadth and that we look at them according to fewer, specific characteristics with greater intensity in CMC than in FtF. But overall, I think you pretty much summed up the spark theory, no matter how good they look on paper, all that matters is when you meet them face to face.
Eden,
Glad to hear you aren't abandoning Facebook just yet. I agree with what Robert added about the nature of something so obnoxious as laughing at one's own jokes. It really is something that doesn't translate across a CMC environment, and especially not in Facebook's asynchronous messages. I think your analysis of this through the hyperpersonal model is dead-on, and really captures the essence of your experience with this person. I also find it incredible that he had never really heard of The Office, the eighth deadly sin.
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