I decided to use ICQ.com and join a chat room. Having barely any previous experience in a chat room, I decided to join a room specified by age. Being 19, I chose the teens group. Immediately I was thrown into an ongoing conversation that seemingly made no sense. To the right side of the dialogue box I saw a list of the screen names of people in the teens room. Scrolling through, I found the screen name soccer_babe25 and, liking soccer myself, began a private conversation.
I began by asking her simple questions, such as her name, location and age. She told me she is fifteen years old from Massachusetts, named Keiyara. She then asked my age and I lied, telling her I was only 17. This is when I realized I had made a mistake by choosing teens instead of 20’s and began to quickly feel like a pedophile. Nevertheless, I continued the conversation.
We began to talk about soccer. Keiyara told me she plays right fullback and had just ended practice a few hours ago. According to Keiyara, her team practices every day, including Sunday. After a few minutes of soccer discussion, our chat quickly died and I told her I had to leave. She didn’t seem too hurt.
My immediate impression of Keiyara was not good. She began the conversation with short and meaningless lines, which I attributed as her being a cold person. In terms of the Big 5 Traits, she was certainly not neurotic- never during our conversation did she seem anxious or nervous. With her noticeable lack of interest in me and lack of adding to the conversation (other than answering my questions), I do not feel she is an extravert or very open. She was agreeable to talk to me however and conscientious of the fact that I was interested (or so she thought) in her, so she continued to answer my questions.
I believe our conversation is best described by the Hyperpersonal Theory. In the beginning, my over-attribution is very apparent as I immediately felt that Keiyara was dumb, due to her continuous spelling errors. Additionally, as our conversation developed, I felt Keiyara was giving only a selective self-presentation. Although she told me she plays fullback on a good soccer team, she failed to tell me that she was a good soccer player. Perhaps she was only giving me information that made her sound better, and the reality may be quite different.
Overall, I learned never to talk in a teen chat room.
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3 comments:
Hey, I'm Brendan Suhrland. After reading your post, I have to say I was surprised that you felt as though your experience matched the Hyperpersonal model. The experience you described seemed similar to many experiences I have had with people online, and I have always been left without feeling a strong impression of my conversation partner in those instances. I feel as though I would say my experience would have matched the CFO perspective if I had been the one conversing with "soccer_babe25." However, it would be impossible for you to consummately describe your experience with this individual in one paragraph, so I can really only guess. Additionally, I feel as though all the theories we have learned have merit, and that which theory applies in a given instance really depends upon your own personality.
I think that your experience can definitely be described as following the hyperpersonal model in that you made a quick and exaggerated impression of this girl. However, I think it could fall under the CFO perspective as well. Given her short responses to many of her questions, it could have made her appear task-focused and cold, following the theory of reduced social context cues. Since you had limited cues to base your opinion on, it seemed to result in a pretty negative impression. I think that many of our experiences may be considered hyperpersonal or CFO, and that is what is so interesting about first impressions. Whereas one may view her lack of talking in the conversation as a clue that she is neither extraverted nor open and possibly shy, someone else may find her to be rude and disinterested. Although research has proved that we are more likely to have less breadth and more intensity in our impressions of people online, I think it only makes sense that this would vary from person to person as it does in face to face interactions.
I too find myself suprised that you connected your experience with the hyperpersonal model. It sounded to me as though the lack of cues in your interactions with soccerbabe left a very impovershed impression of her indeed. While I understand your over-attribution as a resulf of her consistent spelling errors, I feel as if your rather neutral final impression of her would be a greater support of the CFO perspective.
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