My friend, “Jane,” started talking to someone she met on myspace based on her group associations and interests. After over a year of talking through CMC, Jane finally met her myspace friend FtF. They spoke everyday online and were able to successfully move their relationship offline. Contrary to the results discussed in Ramirez & Wang, their long-term association via CMC did not produce uncertainty nor did it negatively affect their relationship when they moved to FtF interaction.
One reason their modality switch did not follow Ramirez & Wang’s results is due to what the article refers to as the “turning point,” the threshold at which the expectancy violations produced are evaluated negatively or positively when meeting FtF. This point has the potential to alter the future path (continuance or end) of the relationship. Initially, Jane said that the first meeting was slightly awkward, but once they began talking, they realized that they were exactly as they had portrayed themselves to be in CMC, so conversing became much more relaxed and Jane found her partner to be just as interesting offline as she was online. Their modality switch was a success because, as noted in Ramirez & Wang, when they met FtF, the violations that were congruent with their past information reduced uncertainty between them.
After a long enough period of time of self-disclosure online, they had formed a close relationship so moving their relationship to FtF did not impact the expectancies of each other. Also, Ramirez & Wang defined their long-term association to be six weeks, while Jane had spoken to her partner for over a year. Jane notes that she doesn’t think it would have made a difference whether they spoke for three months or six months online before meeting because from their long-term associations, the impression formation of each other was not going to vary much.
Since her myspace friend specified in group characteristics in her profile, this led Jane to have a strong social attraction towards her, but she only knew her based on the shared interests they discussed online, so when they met FtF, the uncertainty about her myspace friend’s personality was reduced. Thus, as Jane discovered other similarities in her friend’s humor, mannerisms, behavior, etc., she liked her more. This confirms the positive outcome for leaving virtuality stated in the Uncertainty Reduction Theory, where the uncertainty reduction process leads to an affinity or attraction.
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