After my sophomore year in high school, I went to a summer program at The University of Chicago to study American Law. Thrust into a situation where I was forced to either make friends quickly or suffer a lonely four weeks sitting alone in my dorm room (even though at the time the idea of living in a dorm room was exciting all by itself!), I learned how to make friends fast. I soon became very close with three girls, all of whom came from very different areas of the country. Crystal is from New York City, Naomi is from Indiana, Sara is from Los Angeles and I am from New Jersey. We all come from completely different backgrounds, yet somehow we had so many similarities and became extremely close in such a short amount of time.
When the program ended, each of us sadly went our separate ways. Since four way conference calling was a little difficult for us, we resorted to email in order to keep in touch. We each sent out weekly emails updating one another on the daily routines that were our lives at the time. Soccer practice. Mock trial. Student Government Association. We each had our own stories to tell. Crystal, Naomi and Sara's stories became a little more interesting when they applied to college an entire year before I did. I would hear their horror stories of writing applications along with the decisions to go to one school or another. I even came very close to convincing Naomi to go to the University of Pennsylvania, which is just fifteen minutes from my home. Every week, I would look forward to these emails because at the time it was the only conversation I could have with all three of my friends at the same time.
Keeping up our friendship using CMC with one, let alone three people is extremely hard. One of Wallace's factors regards proximity, which is very evident as a factor in my friendships. Because Wallace says that familiarity breeds attraction, it is only natural to assume that since the four of us go to different universities and live in completely different parts of the country, we have become less and less familiar with each other's lives on a daily basis. No matter how much we tell each other about what is going on in our day to day experiences, we are not physically with one another to experience these things together. Even with forums such as Facebook where we are able to increase our interseciton frequency and constantly check up on one another, there can be no true substitute for actually sharing experiences with each other rather than simply telling them of my daily experiences. With Facebook, I can easily look at their pictures and see how much fun they are having with their friends, but the problem remains that I am not there as one of those friends on a daily basis. Facebook almost makes our situation more painful because I get to see how much fun each of my friends are having without the rest of us. Everyone is making new friends and making new memories, while all we have are the few weeks we spent together. The truth is that no matter how many emails we send to remain in contact with one another, being far away from each other has really resulted in a diminished relationship between all of us. Wallace's idea that familiarity flows from location really resonates in my personal experience with CMC communication.
From what I have said so far, it seems as if the early CFO studies suggesting that fewer cues and less emotion leads to a less developed relationship would seem to be true in my case. However, there is more of the story to tell...
Wallace also developed the idea of "common ground" where we tend to become attracted to people that have common attitudes and beliefs. Because I spent four weeks with these girls in an environment that intensifies relationships, (since we spent twenty four hours a day together for four weeks and needed to find friends quickly) we quickly learned the similarities we had with one another despite our diverse backgrounds. This continued in our online conversations, and since we were aware of what similarities we had, each of us was able to share our stories with one another knowing that we would understand completely. This is the main difference between our relationship versus each of our individal relationships at home or at school. In face to face relationships, the proportion of similarities tends to be smaller since there are many more cues and much more availability to spot differences. In our weekly email conversations, we already new each other and what was similar and different about one another. However, all the new pieces of information we shared with each other tended to revolve around the similarities we already knew we had! Telling each other something that we would not have in common would simply put more of a strain on the distance of our relationships. Therefore, the proportion of similarities we had in CMC was higher than the proportion of similarities that Crystal, Naomi, Sara and myself were developing with our friends at home and at school! So THIS is what allows for us to have a continued relationship! We simply make sure we keep telling each other pieces of information that we share in common so that we do not fade out of each other's lives! We future lawyers of America have solved the problem of keeping online relationships going...simply tell each other what you think they want to hear!
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-im-so-much-cooler-online.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-is-online-wedding-adultery.html
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4 comments:
Jamie,
Your blog post is very well written and engaging. You do a good job of tying in theories and concepts from class into your description of the online relationship you have with your friends. I especially like and agree with your observation that you each share information with each other that you know that each individual can relate to, and that you each make efforts (though unacknowledged by any of you) to share these specific, filtered pieces of information from your daily lives in order to keep the interest in each other alive.
I think that the hyperpersonal model relates to some extent to your situation as well. Based on what you write, it seems like you want to keep your friendship going, even if it is based on filtered out information about your lives, which could eventually lead to over-exaggeration to satisfy this desire.
I enjoyed your post. You applied the concept of "common ground" perfectly. Sharing a long-lived experience such as a summer program, or even something like college, helps mantain relationship and build upon them. You will always have the experience at the Law School to draw upon and remenise about old times.
I also found your section about the difficulty of no being physically with your friends intiguing. On one hand, you are happy your friends are doing well, but on the other hand you wish you were there. It is interesting that even though you are "getting the goods" you feel the relationship has diminished. Maybe knowing so much information makes you feel like you are imposing on another person's life if you bring it up. Still, it is nice to have facebook to stay in touch, not matter what the detail of the conversation or the breadth of the relationship. You never know who you will run into again in the future.
Jamie-
Great post. I've had similar experiences myself, as I'm sure many students have. I used to be fascinated with how fast, and to what level, I could make friends in these strange environments where you only know people for 4 weeks, but feel as close to them as your friends back home.
You do a good job in applying Wallace's "common ground" concept. It really is true. When the only thing you have left is email or chat, and they are no longer a part of your life, its easy to just forget about them and move on. Its also easy to just go through the motions and be like "Omg, me too!!" This second, superficial option, has had great success for keeping in touch, but I would argue it doesn't facilitate as real a relationship as you could have. Granted, this is just one of Wallace's factors. Without the others, the picture is lost.
I think that you did an excellent job with your post. Like others mentioned, I think that one of the strengths of your post was how you applied the concept of "common ground" into your analysis.
The one thing that I found confusing though was the part where you talked about the concept of proximity and friendship. I don't get how on one hand you can wish someone well, but then desire to be there as well.
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