For this week’s assignment, I decided to describe a relationship that has required a great deal of mediated communication. To describe this long distance relationship, I will use Walther’s (1999) attraction factors. Of the four (physical attraction, proximity, common ground and disinhibition effects), proximity and common ground are the two that will best assist me in explain my friendship with Alex.
I met Alex during my sophomore year of high school in our geometry class. Since then we’ve had some rough times but she has remained one of my best friends. When we both left for school in the fall of 2005, Alex went to Columbia University in New York City while I went to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. We were only about 30 minutes away by train and saw each other almost every weekend. Although we didn’t spend as much time together as we did during the previous years, it was still easy to keep in touch. My sophomore year though, I transferred to Cornell. Almost four hours away from Alex. This made it a lot more difficult to maintain contact and interact as much did before. We both feared that the distance would threaten our friendship and thus decided to set some ground rules: we would email back and forth at least twice a week and speak on the phone every Sunday.
Two years later, we are both juniors and have remained very close friends. Walther’s proximity and common ground can easily help illustrate how this has happened. PROXIMITY is the idea that familiarity breeds attraction. Familiarity is something Alex and I developed during our time together in high school (full of face to face interactions), which flow from location (same neighborhood). As our relationship became mainly computer mediated, our bond grew stronger on the basis of recurring interactions (intersection frequency – how much “…you run into a person on the net” (Wallace, 139)). Another very important element is the idea of COMMON GROUND. This factor entails the belief that mutually shared beliefs, assumptions and propositions propagate familiarity. It can be either conversational (common interest or belief is discovered during a conversation –face to face interactions-, i.e.: both persons like the rock music) or categorical (both persons belong to a group –CMC interactions-, i.e.: both from Cornell). Alex and I are both from the same hometown, attended the same high school, share a great number of friends, like the same type of music, appreciate poetry, love Thai food, have the same political views, attend Ivy League schools, are both bilingual and both very close to our families. All these factors are common grounds and have strongly facilitated our friendship by making it easier and more comfortable to share opinions and facts knowing that they will most likely be understood and supported. Some of these are also what drew us closer during the beginning stages of our friendship. For instance, during one of our first interactions I found out that both Alex and I went to Thai restaurants for our birthdays and were both very politically active. Just knowing these two elements of her personality attracted me to her right away. The Law of Attraction explains this idea. The theory states that the greater the proportion of shared attitudes and beliefs, the more we are attracted to the other person. Although I only knew two things about Alex’s personality, I agreed with both of them 100%, leading me to draw exaggerated conclusions about her personality and that her and I would be great friends. The theory also states that if I had know more about Alex, but had agreed with her on less issues, my opinion would have been that I don’t know enough about her to draw a solid conclusion.
Just like we did in high school, Alex and I still argue and disagree on some issues. Although we have both matured and changed in many ways, had our bickering ceased after graduation it would have probably been as a result of poor communication. Walther’s factors, proximity (familiarity breeds attraction) and common ground (mutually shared beliefs, assumptions and propositions) help explain how my bond with Alex remained so strong during the years. We were able to retain a solid relationship by maintaining a good level of familiarity through frequent online interaction (proximity) and through the joint beliefs (common ground) we had shared in high school and that we still agree upon.
COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/a51-oh-father-where-art-thou.html.
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-is-online-wedding-adultery.html
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1 comment:
It's pretty interesting that we both relate to each other's post. Although, while you had the same or a similar experience as I did in my post, I've had the counter experience to yours in your post.
While I'm able to keep up with my parents, that seems to be the limit for me as I rarely chat with friends from high school or middle school. I am indeed facebook friended with them, but I also don't use facebook very much anymore so that's also a moot point. When taking that into account, the theories we've learned in class all seem to scream out loud that the relationship would suffer and deteriorate. However, whenever I visit Toronto and I get back together with my old friends, it's almost as if we pick up where we left of, even if only for a few days. The laughs come easy, there is nothing really “awkward” despite the large gaps of time between communication. In fact during summer 2005 I visited a friend in Italy that I had not seen, nor communicated with (for the most part), in 6 or so years. In spite of that very large gap, from arriving in Rome till leaving a few weeks later it was as if those “lost” years did not exist.
It would be interesting to see if the theories could find a way to explain my counter experiences or if there are additionally theories that can help to explain. Then again, maybe I just pick really good friends. :)
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