With little experience in the chat room realm, I entered a chat room for “college students” and just watched. Conversation was flying among the 20 or so people in the chat room and it seemed as though these people knew each other quite well. They were asking where “Mike” was this morning and how “Samantha” was dealing with her breakup. I was amazed at the setting’s fast-paced and intimate appearance.
I hesitantly typed “hi” and many replied “hi” back but continued the previous conversations. So, I singled out “Greek Boy” and started a private conversation. Based this conversation, I felt that on a scale of warm to cold, he was in the middle, closer to warm. He was agreeable, more than willing to have a conversation with me, and pleasant throughout, but his comments were short and to the point. While he was not rude, I felt that the short responses indicated lack of interest. He was open with answering my questions, but our conversation did not get very personal. I’m not sure how open he would have been had the conversation gone deeper. He seemed extroverted, asking me questions, answering my questions, and introducing new topics. It was difficult to judge neuroticism and conscientiousness. I think the conversation was too short to get a good impression of these two traits. This is similar to the Hancock and Dunham study where participants found it more difficult to make judgments of neuroticism in CMC than in FTF.
I believe that my overall impression and experience fits with the Cues Filtered Out Perspective – the lack of cues in CMC leads to neutral, undeveloped impressions. I think that a large part of this has to do with the length of the conversation. I do not believe that I formed a good impression of “Greek Boy” because of the short and basic conversation about age, location, school, job, travel plans, and activities. While the Hancock and Dunham study found that the hyperpersonal model fits impressions formed in text better than CFO, I have to disagree in relation to my experience. I felt that the lack of cues and the lack of depth in the conversation did not allow me to make intense or exaggerated impressions. Rather than intense, my impression was average, falling more in the middle than the extremes. Looking back on the conversation, I did not concentrate much on personality because again we did not go in depth about ourselves and the one word responses did not give me many clues. While I can see how the hyperpersonal model fits better for CMC, I think that in my one experience, CFO better describes the impression (or lack of one) that I formed.
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2 comments:
Before writing my blog, I went into a college chat room in which the people also seemed to know each other very well. I found myself almost getting nervous to interrupt their conversation, as if I would not be accepted into their "on-line clique." I think it is interesting that you noted time as your reasoning for your neutral impression of this person because that must play an impact on the way we make impressions. In FtF first impressions we immediately make flash-judgments, whether we are willing to admit it or not, based on gender, clothing, and just a few words with someone. The exaggerated or intense impressions that go along with the hyperpersonal model would probably require that the person speak more, or that you have a longer conversation with that person. On the other hand, it is possible that someone else may have found this person very rude because of one word responses, rather than uninterested, and that would coincide with the hyperpersonal model. I think it is possible that if the conversation lasted a little longer, your impressions of this person may or may not have changed.
My experience in a chat room was very different from the one you seemed to have. Which leads me to believe that each theory can be applied in certain situations. It seems the Greek Boy really didn't give you enough cues to make an impression. I really liked how you decided to go with CFO not based on a negative impression (it is easy to do this with CFO) but actually based on the fact that there was a lack of cues. Although you say Greek Boy was willing to engage in a conversation with you, it doesn't seem that he gave any indication that he was interested in getting to know you. Maybe you could have tried to disclose some information about yourself...maybe he would have responded with being more open. How did you present yourself to Greek Boy? Do you think he was able to make a good impression of you?
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