Assignment 2

(I apologize in advance for the length, I've tried to cut it down as much as possible!)

For our second assignment I decided to enter a psychological space not fully classified in Wallace. I joined Yahoo!'s board game service in order to play a casual game of Go (an Asian board game) with some one. The service includes synchronous chat functions so that players may converse in the common room, or in the game room, privately between players. In this way it can be seen as an interesting variant on synchronous chat.

Having enjoyed Go in real life I felt it would be interesting to interact and play with someone else interested in the same game. With the assignment in mind I entered the Beginner Room, and joined a small game with go9127_player (go9 from now on). As I entered I said, “hello” and clicked to start the game. I received no response but go9 started playing. Having not played in a while, I played poorly, but I was hoping to capitalize on that and use it as an ice breaker to ask for recommendations. As soon as I resigned though, go9 started playing the second game. Deciding to continue, I answered his play. Near the end of the game I played a surprisingly good move which finally prompted go9 to speak, “good try/but/too late”. I know I've lost, but for the sake of conversation I followed with, “it's really done?/I guess so, heh”. I was excited that go9 warmed up, and tried to further facilitate conversation by using non judgmental speech. I resigned, but before I could ask what go9 suggests I should work on, go9 adds, “even baby can see it.”

At this point my impression had been that go9 was simply a little shy with communicating with a stranger over the Internet, possibly due to being younger, definitely not late teens or an adult. However, with this one comment, my impression completely flipped. All of a sudden go9 became a conceited and blunt person. The personal attack struck out, making me revise my age beliefs upwards. With a bit of time to calm down I begin to think it may have more to do with language, perhaps go9 was blunt simply because of unfamiliarity with English. I respond, “may want to chose your words more carefully though next time.” to which go9 says, “u r nothing wrong, but bad lucky.” With this last comment my impression starts to ease back a bit. However, when I tried to start a third game, go9 declared, “two games/enough to say who is winnwe/i should say winner/bye”. Again my strong negative impression resurged. This person, regardless of lack of faculty with english, was bored of my beginner play, it seemed to me, and with haughty unconcern, simply left.

Not wanting to end on a bad note, I tried to find another game. Joining one, I again said Hello to the other person. However, not only did I receive no response, the opponent was not starting the game. I waited for 4 minutes before leaving. The next 2 attempted games had the same course of events, save for my patience running out exponentially faster. I quit the last game in under 15 seconds of no response. These cases were interesting in that I had received absolutely no interaction from my targets, yet this very lack of interaction prompted my extremely negative initial impressions that these people where inconsiderate, rude, and aggravating. Looking back I considered that they may be dealing with emergency situations, however the technology of the online space allowed one to easily remove oneself from “waiting for a game” status: use one click to close the window. In real life, it's a simple matter to see if someone is preoccupied and doesn't respond to a salutation, or inquiries, however with synchronous chat it is impossible to know whether the person is rudely ignoring you or legitimately ignoring you.

My reactions and impressions seem to fall mostly in a few aspects of the Hyperpersonal model, while also dipping into Reduced Social Context Cues. My reactions were usually very strong, and my initial impressions, even when changed all seemed “sure”. Go9 had to be younger because go9 was shy. This then changed to go9 had to be a conceited teen because he's acting like a haughty, immature, jerk. Despite the conflicting information, every stage of the impression formation was thought to be sure, until new information appeared. This represents the over attribution process and the re-allocation of cognitive resources ideas of Hyperpersonal. I was inflating the intensity of any impression (both good and bad) and was strongly focusing on the text and presentation using my imagination to fill in the person who could say what was being said. With the no-games following, over attribution itself went to the extreme as I judged people even when not receiving a response. I considered it rude to falsely declare yourself as waiting for a game and not play, leading me to develop negative impressions. This leads into how my experience fits with Reduced Social Context Cues. People were focused on the task of playing and communication was curt or outright lacking. While go9 started at neutral in my mind, each successive player was thought of as more negative. In essence I began to assume people had poor qualities unless proven otherwise.

While I eventually went on to encounter a friendly player (it took a fair amount of time and switching rooms), and developed additional thoughts on the subject, seeing how I'm already over the limit I'll end here. If it's okay, I may add the story and thoughts in a comment.