You Like Pink, too? Wow, we have SO much in common!

After joining the Accepted: University of Michigan Class of 2011 group on Facebook, my neighbor, Rachel immediately started making connections with others in the group. She even went into college in a “complicated relationship with” a girl she had met on Facebook and communicated with through instant messenger over the summer. Learning about their present friendship outside of the virtual world, I better understand how leaving virtuality ties into the Hyperpersonal theory of computer-mediated communication (Walther, 1997).

Although switching to a face-to-face form of communication provides more social cues and information about a person, this is not necessarily going to benefit the relationship (Ramirez, 2007). According to the Hyperpersonal theory, (Walther, 1997) impressions online will likely be exaggerated versions of the other person’s true character. Selective self-presentation allows the presenter to modify and mold the way he or she represents him or herself, giving off the best impression possible. Although this can be beneficial to relationship formation, it also raises expectations of the other by both parties. Text-based communication likely leads to a belief in many more similarities than actually exist in reality and a sort of “idealized” view of the other person. Students going into their first year of college are in such a vulnerable state and are likely to put even more weight on these conversations, taking each word of the other person as a sign that they were meant to be life long friends. According to the Laws of Attraction, it is the proportion of shared attitudes and beliefs that leads to attraction and thus the fewer cues available in a mediated channel may heighten this phenomenon. When Rachel met this girl in the University of Michigan class of 2011 group, and they both learned of their true love for the color pink, it seemed like a match made in heaven.

When they finally met at school, already in a Facebook “complicated relationship,” the girls likely expected to be best friends. They had highly over-attributed their similarities to one another and had very high expectations of what their friendship would be. They are simply two very different people who get along well, but ironically are by no means as close as they were when they were sitting in separate rooms, on opposite sides of the country, and behind their own computer screens. Since the time they spent online was more similar to the “long-term” group used in Ramirez and Wang’s (2007) study, it makes sense that their move out of virtuality was less expected and less positive. Meeting people online prior to school can certainly reduce anxiety about attending college. Unfortunately, it may also lead people to put all of their attention on and effort into the success of these expected friendships because they worked so well online. However, there are so many new people to meet in that first rush of excitement at college, it is important not to solely consider these prior CMC relationships that may or may not work out.

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