11 - a good friend?

I knew my good friend Amy through mutual friends; we never met in FtF. We talked for almost a year before meeting in FtF. I needed a place to stay for a week in NYC, and she offered her place. At first my impressions were more negative, but along the course of the week, my impressions became more positive. I adjusted to her “true” personality and understood her more.

My relationship with Amy is best explained by the Social Information Processing Model. It took time for me to get a good impression of who she was.

Factors that affected our relationship were proximity, common ground, and removal of gating features. We have high intersection frequency being on AIM frequently. We had a strong common ground being in the same organizations and sharing friends. Through CMC, we had a huge proportion of similarities. We had high self-disclosure because we did not know each other. In this sense removal of gating features was present because we did not judge each other.

The Gibbs article supports three hypotheses based on the SIP model which were true for me as well. Amy and I held importance on a long term relationship resulting in more honest, more frequent, and more intentional self-disclosure, though not necessarily more positive.

Ramirez and Wang state in their article that modality switching allows access to new social information, filling blanks left by CMC impression formation, “enhance partner perceptions, and further relationship growth.” This is in accordance to my own experience. I did not have a complete impression of Amy, but meeting her in FtF definitely solidified it. Ramirez and Wang also state that “impressions formed through extended period of CMC typically fail to match the physical reality experienced” which was also the case for me. I found Amy to be more sarcastic and less open. This in turn follows what Ramirez and Wang state that “modality switching (MS) diminishes communication processes and social outcomes” when FtF doesn’t meet CMC expectations. This was true for an initial time span. The Expectancy Violation Theory also held for our situation because I expected Amy to be less sarcastic and more open which was inconsistent with my FtF impression. Over time, a chain of events, which involved more discussion, explained the difference in my impression of her. Meeting Amy was definitely a “turning point”, as Ramirez and Wang state, in our relationship. It solidified the strength of our relationship.