Assignment 5: Prox and Common ground win!

In my past, I have never been one to do a lot of online relationship forming. My online experience has almost always stemmed from continuing interaction with people I have met before. I am therefore going to examine my summer experience when my girlfriend is at home in Hawaii and I am here in Ithaca using Wallace's Attraction Factors, physical attraction, proximity, common ground and disinhibition.

For some background; my girlfriend and I have been together since freshman year, and each summer she goes home to Hawaii and I stay here in Ithaca. I spent the first 4 weeks of each summer traveling, once in Hawaii where I did see her, but for the most part we had mediated interactions. I'll look at Wallace's factors through my experience.

The physical attraction attribute won't work because the idea is that someone will make an impression based off of personality and not appearance due to the lack of cues. I met her ahead of time, knew her physical appearance, and got to know her personality afterwards. Physical attraction is a factor that is limited to only to relationships started online.

Proximity is the idea that familiarity grows out of more frequent contact. This is like seeing someone on the sub-way every day; you know them more than the person who you have never seen before, sitting next to them. Proximity also is diminished when the relationship is not only mediated, but it still works as an example. All summer long we would send emails, chat on IM and talk on the phone. These three mediums were only available on weekends because of the time difference, and my work schedule, we were limited to an asynchronous medium, email, during the week. This made the relationship slower, it was harder to build on a relationship through the medium. Especially since we knew that in 8 weeks or less, we would be in person again. So proximity is less important when the relationship starts in real life.

Common ground is the same in real life and in mediated communications, because it is a matter of interest, not usually visual, something learned through conversation. Which brings me to the last factor of attraction, Disinhibition.

Disinhibition to me in high school made sense. I talked much more openly to my friends about things over IM. I followed O’Sullivan’s Impression Management model well. I was more comfortable talking about myself when it was mediated and I had more control over what was being said. Since then, I have gained confidence in myself and my speaking ability to the point that I prefer richer mediums. So disinhibition is becoming less plausible as a factor for affection mediated relationships I am in.

I will say, that for me, the factor that plays a role in talking with my friends at other schools who I don’t see enough, proximity and common ground play the biggest role. If I see them more often, I communicate more often, and the relationship continues to grow. If we have more in common, I am more likely to have something to say.