Ahoy all.
So this weekend I spend a good deal of time on IRC talking to various people seeking to answer an interesting question. When we are conversing with others on the internet, do their impressions form when we tell them who we are? Or are others sharper than that and able to detect whether we are masking our identity? For the purpose of this experiment, I decided not to change anything about the way I interact with others, because if I did act differently, then I would be lacking a good control to compare my results against. Instead, all I did was mention (casually) that I was male sometimes and female others. Other than that, I carried the conversation as I normally would speak to an absolute stranger that I had never met before. I generally carried out my conversations for about 20-25 minutes so we would have enough time to get to know each other while still giving myself a chance to speak with roughly 15 different people, nearly evenly splitting the number of times I said I was male and female. I first spoke to about 4 people telling them that I was a male so I would have something to compare my responses against. Then I spoke to about 4 as female, then 2 more as male so I could make new observations, and finally about 5 more as female. Also, I spoke to males only just to preserve the variables that were introduced.
My results were quite interesting. In some cases, I found that my answer didn't make much of a difference to the people that I was talking with. In the majority of cases when I said that I was male, there was nothing really extraordinary that I observed. Comparatively speaking, the other people were sometimes less interested unless we found some common ground to talk about like Linux or something like that. Other hot topics included mostly academic topics like careers, majors and other things of that nature. I tried dipping into sports a big, but didn't get very much a response at all.
On the other hand, when I mentioned that I was female, I had a small variety of responses. The majority of who I mentioned I was female to tried to hit on me. Their passes were varied in degree from slight to moderate, but for the most part, it wasn't too heavy. Most of the people I spoke to seemed to be the shy with their comments, making comments that were more sexually immature than sexually imposing. I considered it harmless, especially since I knew that they probably wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't say I was female. But more significantly, and more generally, all the people I spoke to when I said I was female seemed to be more interested in talking. Even if they didn't make a noticeably flirtatious comment, they seemed to be testing the water, intrigued as to why a female would initiate a conversation with them, possibly hopeful for some future gratification or something of the nature. This is in contrast to the responses as I was male, when my responses were much more terse and succinct. Of course, there were a few that were either so subtle or not responsive at all that it didn't seem to make a difference as to what sex I introduced myself to them as. These few generally seemed more shy and introverted, and less likely to produce a response. Their responses were equally terse as the ones I received when I said I was male.
As to whether they could tell whether I was male or female, some seemed to lose interest in talking to me when I didn't respond to their innuendos. Nobody really questioned whether I really was female (or male for that matter, thankfully), but they did seem to think that I wasn't exactly a conventional female that regularly went around in the IRC realm. The fact of the matter is that when you act the same way whether it's as a male or female, I think that it can still be difficult for whoever you're talking to to be really sure which you are. Of course, if you make openly explicit comments that say whether you're male or female, (regardless of which you really are), then there will obviously be no doubt as to your identity. These are indicated by my results. When you simply state which sex you are, it seems that you more seem to change your partner's impression of you, but it is not very easy for them to tell unless you tell them. This strongly supports the hyperpersonality theory where the reactions are largely based on little information, and I gave them extremely little to work with. In the majority of my conversations, I talked of little more than my location and career. Their extreme responses are definitely caused by the fact that I said I was male or female and that I am in college (which was basically implied when I spoke of my school-related affairs).
Interesting results - I think in future attempts, I might want to divulge more about myself to see how much I have to say when my results start to diverge.
Until later.
ashish
(I don't like capitalizing my name)
Monday, September 10, 2007
Assignment #3: "Hey Friend! Wait up! I'm right behind you! Heyy!"
In class we discussed different types of media selection that we use everyday to communicate. Some were considered lean channels (less cues) and others were rich channels (ones with more cues). After learning about O’Sullivan’s Media Richness Theory, I started to pay attention to my choice of media selections when talking with friends.
One situation in which I had to pick a certain media type of communications was done just a couple of hours ago for me. I was on my way home from classes and just 10ft. in front of me was a friend. I decided, since there were no other people in between us, to shout out his name and catch up with him that way. I considered calling him on my cell phone, but thought I was close enough to shout to him and him being able to hear me. We walked down together for a little bit, then he had to go to class and I proceeded to walk home. I chose to have a FtF interaction, which is a rich channel according to O’Sullivan, because I thought it would be the quickest, most efficient way to communicate. I considered calling him, but I thought he might not hear his cell phone and at the same time, I felt he was close enough to just shout out to.
Just a couple feet later, I spotted another friend, this time, the pathway was a lot more crowded, several people in between us and he was also farther away. I did not think I could shout to him and stop him because he was too far away, so I decided to call him and ask him to wait for me. Now that I am reflecting on the latter situation, I realized that there were other factors that contributed to my decision to call the second friend rather than a simple FtF interaction of calling out his name like the first situation. One reason that contributed to using a leaner channel is the fact that there were several people between me and my friend. I thought the FtF choice would be ineffective because my voice would be lost in the crowd. Also, I did not want to embarrass myself by attempting to get the attention of my friend, and him potentially not hearing me. I did not want to present myself in the public as a “loser” who could not get the attention of a friend. I think everyone can agree with me when they try to call out a friend’s name passing by on campus, possibly across the street or quad, then feeling very embarrassed because the friend did not hear/notice you. Therefore, the safe choice for me was to take the leaner approach and call my friend for the sake of not risking embarrassment.
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Assignment #3: Different Approaches to Ambiguity
We are constantly making decisions about what medium to use to express ourselves. As technology rises, that range of choices has become increasingly overwhelming. It was not at all difficult to find instances of media selection this weekend. I chose two ambiguous interactions with contrasting valence, to see how they compared.
In my first interaction, I had to confront a student employee (we'll call him Jack) whom I supervise for neglecting follow through on an important project. I chose to use e-mail. I specifically wanted to avoid non-verbal cues, so that I could benefit from spelling out my concerns without being stymied by my own nerves in a face-to-face encounter. I don't like to have these sorts of accusatory discussions, but when they are called for they are crucial. The buffer eased tensions by avoiding a confrontational situation, which would have been unavoidable face-to-face. Not only did the asynchronous nature of e-mail give my message time to sink in, it also provided Jack an opportunity to respond on his own terms. Should he choose to call me because he prefers the richer medium, he has that option.
My choice in this case clearly supports O'Sullivan's assertions that we sometimes choose a leaner medium to manage self-presentation, even when the communication is equivocal in nature. Given the negative valence of accusation in this situation, combined with the locus of self, I easily preferred the mediated communication. Here I embraced the ambiguity not only to diffuse the situation for my own comfort, but also to permit Jack an opportunity to manage his own impressions by giving him space and allowing him to choose his own channel to respond. As we see in O'Sullivan's Impression Management Model, this back and forth does not exactly exhibit efficiency. Whatever the outcome, the focus here is on regulating self-presentation with ambiguity. This strays from the Media Richness Theory, which holds that we will explicitly choose a richer media for ambiguous tasks such as this.
My next interaction supports MRT. My brother recently graduated and started his new job. He landed a great position, though he works for Hospice (providing counseling for families with loved ones on the verge of passing away,) so it is very difficult, emotional work. I know that it is taking a toll on him and I wanted to let him know how proud I was. I chose the richest media that I could, considering that he lives far away in Colorado: the telephone was the channel. We had a great talk. By the time we hung up, I had an even greater respect for him and I believe that he felt better to have been able to talk about his crazy new life with his older brother.
MRT focuses on the multiplicity of cues in a richer medium, as well as the availability of feedback. A text message, an email, or even IM would have been a poor substitute for being able to hear my brother's voice and vice versa. We know each other so well that there are also plenty of non-verbal cues which are implied in a tone of voice. I was very happy with my decision to use richer media in this successful interaction. My goal was met.
And what of Jack, the wayward student whom I targeted via email? He emailed me back immediately, requesting a face-to-face meeting to talk about the situation. It was obviously in his best interest to choose the richest medium possible to plead his case. Hopefully, his choice wasn't an effort to optimize his efforts at deception! Perhaps after this week's lectures I'll be better equipped to assess that possibility.
In my first interaction, I had to confront a student employee (we'll call him Jack) whom I supervise for neglecting follow through on an important project. I chose to use e-mail. I specifically wanted to avoid non-verbal cues, so that I could benefit from spelling out my concerns without being stymied by my own nerves in a face-to-face encounter. I don't like to have these sorts of accusatory discussions, but when they are called for they are crucial. The buffer eased tensions by avoiding a confrontational situation, which would have been unavoidable face-to-face. Not only did the asynchronous nature of e-mail give my message time to sink in, it also provided Jack an opportunity to respond on his own terms. Should he choose to call me because he prefers the richer medium, he has that option.
My choice in this case clearly supports O'Sullivan's assertions that we sometimes choose a leaner medium to manage self-presentation, even when the communication is equivocal in nature. Given the negative valence of accusation in this situation, combined with the locus of self, I easily preferred the mediated communication. Here I embraced the ambiguity not only to diffuse the situation for my own comfort, but also to permit Jack an opportunity to manage his own impressions by giving him space and allowing him to choose his own channel to respond. As we see in O'Sullivan's Impression Management Model, this back and forth does not exactly exhibit efficiency. Whatever the outcome, the focus here is on regulating self-presentation with ambiguity. This strays from the Media Richness Theory, which holds that we will explicitly choose a richer media for ambiguous tasks such as this.
My next interaction supports MRT. My brother recently graduated and started his new job. He landed a great position, though he works for Hospice (providing counseling for families with loved ones on the verge of passing away,) so it is very difficult, emotional work. I know that it is taking a toll on him and I wanted to let him know how proud I was. I chose the richest media that I could, considering that he lives far away in Colorado: the telephone was the channel. We had a great talk. By the time we hung up, I had an even greater respect for him and I believe that he felt better to have been able to talk about his crazy new life with his older brother.
MRT focuses on the multiplicity of cues in a richer medium, as well as the availability of feedback. A text message, an email, or even IM would have been a poor substitute for being able to hear my brother's voice and vice versa. We know each other so well that there are also plenty of non-verbal cues which are implied in a tone of voice. I was very happy with my decision to use richer media in this successful interaction. My goal was met.
And what of Jack, the wayward student whom I targeted via email? He emailed me back immediately, requesting a face-to-face meeting to talk about the situation. It was obviously in his best interest to choose the richest medium possible to plead his case. Hopefully, his choice wasn't an effort to optimize his efforts at deception! Perhaps after this week's lectures I'll be better equipped to assess that possibility.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
3 A Weekend of Media Selection
Since individuals use various forms of media each day, it is sometimes difficult to stop and examine how our individual media selection varies based on social context, message content, convenience, and several other factors. Reflecting upon my weekend media usage, two specific instances are particularly interesting to relate to O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model.
On Friday night I told two of my closest friends, Kathryn and Michelle, that I would let them know if I decided to go out in Collegetown (so that we could meet up). In the midst of getting ready and figuring out my plans, I completely forgot to call them and went out with some of my other friends. Towards the end of the night, I ran into Michelle on the street where she confronted me regarding the fact that I hadn’t called her. Although I tried to defend myself, I was caught off-guard and wasn’t really sure what to say in this face-to-face interaction. After we went our separate ways, I chose to send her a text message so that I could carefully select each word and get my message across clearly with greater control than I had in person. This supports O’Sullivan’s idea of interactional control, which focuses on the ability to control the timing and nature of information exchanged. In addition, this leaner channel served as a buffer, allowing me to apologize and admit that I was wrong, without being as “embarrassed” as I may have been in person.
Another instance in which I chose a communication medium for a particular purpose occurred on Saturday afternoon. Since one of my roommate’s birthdays is coming up, my other two roommates and I chipped in to buy her a present. I charged the gift to my credit card and therefore my other roommates owed me a portion of the money. Although I was sure I would get the money back, I didn’t want my friends to forget and wanted to be paid back as soon as possible. I chose to send the same IM to my roommates reminding them that they owed me money and to give me it whenever they got the chance. Even though I live down the hall from them, I chose to send an IM due to the symbolic meaning of the channel. O’Sullivan suggests that the symbolic meaning or the message conveyed by using a specific channel (rather than just the content of a message), may affect the channel one chooses to use. Instant messages are traditionally thought of as a casual way of speaking to one another and therefore seemed like an appropriate to send a casual reminder. If I would have taken that effort to go into each of their rooms and remind them about the money, it may have seemed like I was making a bigger deal out of it than I intended. Although I had the ability to speak to my friends face-to-face, I chose the leaner medium of IM in order to send my friends a symbolically casual reminder that they owed me money.
These media selection encounters I had this weekend support O’Sullivan’s theory, which suggests that in certain situations you may choose a rich or lean media based on the context of the message.
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Assignment 3: To Text or To Call? that is the question.
In the last five minutes I have picked up my cell phone twice. The first was to make a call to a friend to ask him for help with an assignment. The second was to text a girlfriend to ask if she was attending a dinner later tonight. In both instances I was communicating with a person to get an answer to a question. In the former case, I chose the synchronous route with vocal cues to find out the answer to my question that I don’t need to know until tomorrow. In the latter case, I chose the asynchronous route without verbal cues to find out the answer to a question that I need to know in the next hour. While my choice doesn’t seem to make much common sense, since the text may never get answered (it’s been 10 minutes and she hasn’t responded), while a phone call would most likely be answered immediately, looking at it from the point of the Media Richness Theory, it is actually quite logical.
The Media Richness Theory asserts that one chooses lean media for less equivocal tasks. In the case of the text message, it was just that. I asked my friend if she was going to dinner, and all she needed to do was to respond yes or no. Although I needed her to respond within an hour (she texted back 15 minutes after I first messaged her), and calling her may have been a faster way to find out if she was going, I still chose to text message. Why? Well, because text messages generally have good availability of feedback, and since it was a simple question, it made more sense to me that I should text her, rather than call. Also, since it was a simple yes/no question, and I didn’t need multiple cues, there was really no need for me to use a richer communication medium.
The phone call case, on the other hand was a more equivocal task. I was completing an assignment for a class, and I had a question that I needed another classmate to answer. The question wasn’t simply a yes/no one, it was an inquiry that needed a bit of explanation. Because, of that, I chose to contact my friend via telephone, because the verbal cues would help him better explain what I needed to do. Although my question didn’t need to be answered for a day, it really didn’t matter if I asked my friend today or tomorrow, because I would still need to hear his voice for the explanation. Either way I would have ended up calling him. My question required an answer that was both synchronous and verbal, and therefore I chose the rich communication medium of the telephone.
As one can see from my two examples, even though time played a factor in getting a response from my two friends, I still choose which communication medium to use based on the richness that was required in the answers I needed. For the yes/no question, I chose to text, while for the in depth question, I chose to call. My examples demonstrate how I sought an optimal match between the equivocalness of my task and the richness of the medium I chose to use, which is based on the Media Richness Theory.
The Media Richness Theory asserts that one chooses lean media for less equivocal tasks. In the case of the text message, it was just that. I asked my friend if she was going to dinner, and all she needed to do was to respond yes or no. Although I needed her to respond within an hour (she texted back 15 minutes after I first messaged her), and calling her may have been a faster way to find out if she was going, I still chose to text message. Why? Well, because text messages generally have good availability of feedback, and since it was a simple question, it made more sense to me that I should text her, rather than call. Also, since it was a simple yes/no question, and I didn’t need multiple cues, there was really no need for me to use a richer communication medium.
The phone call case, on the other hand was a more equivocal task. I was completing an assignment for a class, and I had a question that I needed another classmate to answer. The question wasn’t simply a yes/no one, it was an inquiry that needed a bit of explanation. Because, of that, I chose to contact my friend via telephone, because the verbal cues would help him better explain what I needed to do. Although my question didn’t need to be answered for a day, it really didn’t matter if I asked my friend today or tomorrow, because I would still need to hear his voice for the explanation. Either way I would have ended up calling him. My question required an answer that was both synchronous and verbal, and therefore I chose the rich communication medium of the telephone.
As one can see from my two examples, even though time played a factor in getting a response from my two friends, I still choose which communication medium to use based on the richness that was required in the answers I needed. For the yes/no question, I chose to text, while for the in depth question, I chose to call. My examples demonstrate how I sought an optimal match between the equivocalness of my task and the richness of the medium I chose to use, which is based on the Media Richness Theory.
Assignment 2: Nice guy or just too creepy??
After searching 15 minutes for a perfect chat room, I decided to enter the one titled “Pool players” As soon as I entered the chat room and looked at the statements some people were making, I knew I was going to encounter some weird people. However, I decided to give it a try and keep the hope alive that there are some nice people who could help me. I wanted to keep a conversation going with someone so I asked, “can anyone teach me how this online pool game works??” One person replied and their screen name was ‘HUNG’. A little scared I still decided to talk to this person who was a 19 year old male from the
The conversation remained pleasant the whole time with him explaining to me what to do and how to play the game online. Even when I tried to get on his nerves by saying, “dude, I don’t get that part…why can’t you do a better job at explaining that to me?”, he was nice and replied that he was sorry. This conversation lasted 20 minutes and by the end he was asking me what my AIM screen name was. Even though he seemed innocent, his niceness and his comment made me very uncomfortable and I decided to leave the chat room.
This CMC experience for me definitely supported the Hyperpersonal model. With the lack of cues, my impression of ‘Hung’ was more exaggerated and intense. Maybe this person was just being nice, but because I couldn’t hear his voice and couldn’t see any visual cues, I thought that he was creepy and a little too friendly. Furthermore, this conversation also negates the SIP theory by Walther (1993) since the information was related very quickly through this chat and I was able to develop a clear impression of this person. In addition to the SIP, the Cues Filtered Out theory did hold a little ground since it says that the lack of cues in CMC would lead to neutral, negative and undeveloped impressions. Even though my impression of ‘HUNG’ was not neutral, it was undeveloped and negative.
My conversation with ‘HUNG’ was kind of doomed from the start because of his screen name but even when he was nice, I had my reservations about him. Also, I thought it was a little odd that a 19 year old from the
3 My Media Selection
Saturday night I had an Office Season 3 marathon with my friend. To watch, however, I had to ask my suitemate to put his TV in the common room. My suitemates and I discussed the television/cable situation before, so, while my suitemate had already agreed to donate his TV to the common room, I didn’t want to seem cold, or give the impression that I was rushing him into giving it up. I wanted to come off sincere and genuine.
Since he lives next to me, and talking face-to-face, instant messaging, and using the phone all take the same amount of time, it came down to how complex I anticipated our discussion being. I wanted to explain that his TV was bigger than my friend’s, and thus, we wanted to watch in the suite.
Later, to let my friend know the plan, I instant messaged him to say that my suitemate agreed to let me move the TV. Since I was doing other work, I didn’t want to use face-to-face communication or the phone because these would undoubtedly have taken more time. Obligatory “Hey, how are you” greetings and discussing things other than plans for the night would have prevented me from getting all my work done. I wanted to say more than “Office, my place, 9:00,” however, so I chose not to text him. I found this middle ground in IM. I was allowed to send quick messages that we got permission to use the TV, and that once I got it set up and made sure my DVD player worked, I would give him a call. I was not drawn into a prolonged conversation - an advantage to IMing.
My observations of media choices this Saturday support the Media Richness Theory. When the conversation was going to be more equivocal and complex, such as explaining why I wanted to move the TV and asking permission, I chose the richest medium there is: face-to-face. When some simple facts about plans needed to be relayed I chose a less rich medium in instant messaging. Since the plans were not as simple as just time and place, however, I chose IM over the even less rich text messaging.
The communication I observed this weekend doesn’t apply to O’Sullivan’s model because neither asking for permission nor relaying time/place information fall under the categories of boost, praise, confess, or accuse. Thus, it was really only possible to assess my communication in relation to Media Richness, and my behavior supported this theory.
Since he lives next to me, and talking face-to-face, instant messaging, and using the phone all take the same amount of time, it came down to how complex I anticipated our discussion being. I wanted to explain that his TV was bigger than my friend’s, and thus, we wanted to watch in the suite.
Later, to let my friend know the plan, I instant messaged him to say that my suitemate agreed to let me move the TV. Since I was doing other work, I didn’t want to use face-to-face communication or the phone because these would undoubtedly have taken more time. Obligatory “Hey, how are you” greetings and discussing things other than plans for the night would have prevented me from getting all my work done. I wanted to say more than “Office, my place, 9:00,” however, so I chose not to text him. I found this middle ground in IM. I was allowed to send quick messages that we got permission to use the TV, and that once I got it set up and made sure my DVD player worked, I would give him a call. I was not drawn into a prolonged conversation - an advantage to IMing.
My observations of media choices this Saturday support the Media Richness Theory. When the conversation was going to be more equivocal and complex, such as explaining why I wanted to move the TV and asking permission, I chose the richest medium there is: face-to-face. When some simple facts about plans needed to be relayed I chose a less rich medium in instant messaging. Since the plans were not as simple as just time and place, however, I chose IM over the even less rich text messaging.
The communication I observed this weekend doesn’t apply to O’Sullivan’s model because neither asking for permission nor relaying time/place information fall under the categories of boost, praise, confess, or accuse. Thus, it was really only possible to assess my communication in relation to Media Richness, and my behavior supported this theory.
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