Bonus Assignment – Experimenting with the Internet

The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.

-Eric Schmidt

In a recent article a Michigan woman named Nancy Makin claims to have lost 500 pounds by going on an “Internet Diet.” While excessive computer use has been linked to obesity, she says that because the internet allowed for anonymity she was able to make friends through chatrooms, which gave her motivation to start slimming down. As an obese woman she found it difficult to interact with people in person and only left her home eight times in the past 12 years. It was only when she began having a social life online that she decided to stop using food to deal with her feelings of isolation. "Anonymity was key," she said. "They couldn't look at me and judge me based on how I looked."

As a fairly recent phenomenon itself, the internet has grown rapidly in use and influence. While the internet environment has been continuously changing as technology evolves, we find ourselves confronting significant new issues as a result. Some theories such as the CFO perspective predicts that due to the lack of cues in CMC, the use of the internet will only lead to underdeveloped and negative impressions and relationships. Yet while there are instances in which this is the case, the experience of Nancy Makin is a prime example that shows that not only do people form intimate relationships online but that the internet will continue to serve as a medium that can connect and influence users. Theories such as the social information processing theory (SIP) that rejects the view that the absence of nonverbal cues restricts the capability to exchange social information will continue to be supported. Another phenomenon that will always hold is interpersonal attraction online. According to McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors (identifiability, the removal of gating factors, interactional control, being able to connect to similar others, getting the goods), the internet will actually increase relationship development. In the example of Nancy Makin who could not interact ftf due to her physical appearance, the removal of gating features such as physical attractiveness allowed her to form relationships online.

Yet while many theories/phenomena will continue to hold as the internet and our uses of it changes, there are also many that are bound to change. Wallace predicted that the eyeball camera will become widespread enough that soon enough most people will have one and the choice to turn it on or off to reveal yourself will be part of the impression one makes. As we can see, Wallace was wrong, at least about the installation of cameras. While the use of video interaction has increased, it is still not popular enough and most likely will not be prevalently used, which shows how much internet users value anonymity online. Yet while users appear to continue to value anonymity, users are now being forced to reveal their identity. For example to be able to post up comments on Wikipedia, users must now identify themselves to increase accountability. If this is applied to all websites, it is most likely that the social support groups online will become less popular because according to Walther & Boyd, part of the reason why online social support groups are appealing is because it is anonymous, whether it is perceived or real. Depending on how the issue of the freedom of speech on the internet is resolved, the future of online spaces remains unpredictable.

The existing theories and phenomena will also continue to change as technology changes. One example that is bringing about new issues is the use of virtual reality to help patients with psychological disorders. A new, high-tech system was designed to treat military veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by creating a “virtual” world that simulates the sources of combat stress. Not only is this being used on veterans but also on patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is a significant discovery because now not only is it critical to study how the internet affects behavior but also how the computer can be used to intentionally change one’s psychology in reality.

As for Comm245, while there are recent developments that were not discussed in class there is just one issue that could have been touched upon, which is the relationship between internet use and learning. I always wondered whether the use of the internet has increased the capacity to learn and retain information or if computers are now the new brains. Yet while we did not discuss this issue in class, I learned one lesson that would help me approach the issue. I found that the neither technological determinism nor social construction can adequately explain the internet because it lies somewhere in the middle. It appears as if the more one explores psychology and the internet, the more we find that there are still many characteristics of the relationship between the internet and its users that we cannot fully understand. Perhaps the reason why there is still so much more to figure out is because the internet is still being experimented with and we’re just lucky enough to be the participants.

The Glass Ball

The Internet has been in use for just under two decades now, and we’ve already witnessed sweeping changes in the way online communication is conducted. Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, had simply wanted to facilitate the sharing of documents among physicists at CERN back in 1990. Today, we have email, instant messenging, streaming video, and social networking sites. Businesses, schools, government agencies, and ordinary citizens around the world rely on the Internet for communication and information exchange. As we make progress, the web will continue becoming richer as a communication medium, and it will permeate society to an even greater extent that it does today.

This has implications for several of the theories we’ve discussed in class this semester. For one, the CFO theories will become even less relevant than they already are. The increasing prevalence of avatars, VoIP, and video conferencing technologies means that CMC is rapidly outgrowing the “text-only” environment it was once restricted to. (Some might even argue that CMC can match FtF even without additional cues.) As more and more online spaces gain richness, media richness theory will begin to make less sense. You will choose a richer media to communicate with those you know really well (i.e., FtF). Text-only spaces will be relegated to communication with outsiders (perhaps people you’ll only talk to once or twice). The synchronicity of the medium shall largely determine which online spaces are used for efficiency, at least when communication is one-to-one.

However, text-only online spaces will never really become fully extinct. USENET, established in 1980 and still thriving, is a testament to this assertion. Chatrooms and forums are convenient for large group discussions among a community of members, where added richness would just distract from the content. In fact, the text-only nature of social support groups is even an advantage when people want to avoid embarrassment. Therefore, it will ultimately possible for theories like the impression management model and McKenna relationship facilitation factors to stay relevant in predicting text-based relationships and interaction.

The hyperpersonal model and SIDE are also likely here to stay for a long time. Humans are essentially prediction machines: we are wired to generalize, draw conclusions, and make predictions about our environment based on what we know. When we know just a little, we will inevitably make all our predictions based on that bit of knowledge. Greater richness will not much change this fact; even in FtF we make generalizations about people based on their appearance, age, gender, race, voice, etc. Were this not so, prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes would not be so ubiquitous.

Advances in technology may blur the boundary between virtuality and real life. Imagine glasses or visors which augment your view of the world, allowing you to digitally interact with other objects and people in your physical environment. (Simple electronic glasses have already been attempted for basic vision correction.) Would Internet addicts still be considered as such if online devices became as necessary as hearing aids or contact lenses?

Serious lying online will become less common overall, for two reasons. First, as newer generations become more familiar with the Internet, they will realize that online interactions are highly recordable. For serious lies, many people currently don’t realize that IM conversations can get logged automatically, search engines will crawl websites, and corporate email is routinely stored in backup. Second, increased richness means that online communication will feel less distributed and less visually anonymous. Theories we have developed about lies (social distance theory, feature-based model, etc.) will continue to apply, but less strongly than they used to.

Looking forward, one might envision a convergence of theories from general psychology and sociology and the theories proposed in a social computing psychology class such as this one. This would not be surprising: as technology enables richer forms of communication in various dimensions, it lets us inch ever closer to a true FtF interaction (while retaining the option of communication in leaner psychological spaces.)

One issue that we didn’t really touch upon in this class was privacy. The dawn of the Internet (and Web 2.0 in particular) has granted us access to a huge network of information and people. People are eager to broadcast to the world, throwing out tons of information about themselves online. In other contexts, much of this information would be considered personal/private matters, so why do people relinquish it online so easily? This is particularly noticeable in personal blogs, social networking sites, Twitter, AIM profiles, etc., where there is a broad but mostly anonymous audience. More importantly, what are the consequences of this large-scale self-disclosure, in terms of both how the public perceives you, and how you respond? We have been told time and again to censor our Facebook profile, lest employers stumble upon our unprofessional traits. Perhaps one day, people will casually overlook these things, realizing that everyone has a multifaceted lifestyle and it is nothing special. Private life self-disclosure would become the norm, and no one would feel the need to partition their self-presentation into professional, casual, and personal categories.

Bonus Assignment - Anonymity and Online Harassment

As the Internet becomes even more of a ubiquitous presence in our lives, the relationship between social psychology and online interaction will continue to grow. It is likely we will become increasingly dependent on it as a utility as time progresses, to the point where a good number of very basic services (such as banking and shopping) will only be done electronically. With the steady increases in dependency and level of access come previously unseen phenomena, as well as old issues upgraded for the current age; some of which are, indeed, problematic.

Recently, the blogosphere has been in an uproar over the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who was reportedly the victim of "cyber-bullying" at the hands of Lori Drew, a friend of the family whose daughter went to school with Megan. Drew posed as a boy named "Josh Evans" on Myspace and proceeded to become well-acquainted with Megan under the scrutiny of the girl's parents. Some time passed, and the messages suddenly became disparaging, then hateful; eventually culminating with a statement that said the world would be a better place without her, to which the girl promptly committed suicide. There are conflicting reports as to what originally sparked this situation (some say Megan was the classic school bully, still others say she was merely targeted for being unattractive and emotionally unstable), but the prosecuting attorney has decided not to press charges against Drew, since a) there is no legal precedent for the situation, and b) it cannot be proven the words of "Josh Evans" are, specifically, what drove Megan over the edge.

Patricia Wallace in The Psychology of the Internet addresses the issue of 'trolling' in relationship to establishing superiority and group cohesion (101). In a lot of ways, the issues are similar; however, most trolling usually occurs at random in a relatively isolated environment, leads to flame wars, and fizzles out in a short amount of time. In this particular situation, you have consistent and targeted psychological manipulation of a minor by an adult posing as a peer. Because multi-use/level services such as Myspace and Facebook didn't exist at the time of publication, it stands to reason that this phenomenon is undocumented. However, she postulates that the relative anonymity lent by computer mediated communication is directly linked to whether, how, and to what degree individuals express aggression. Could this have a hand in how far Drew chose to take the Josh Evans persona, originally intended as a joke? Following that, how responsible is she for Megan's death?

A simple Youtube search for 'cyber + bullying' yields a myriad of results, most of which seek to inform the casual user about the phenomenon. The sheer number of hits implies that this phenomenon is not uncommon, to the point where special interest groups are urging Congress to pass legislature that would define harassing someone over the internet as a punishable offense. If a law is passed, it will have far-reaching implications for online interactions as well as free-speech laws in general. As far as the course is concerned, despite our in-depth discussions of the effects of anonymity on self-presentation, I believe that the topic of cyber-bullying will become more and more of an issue as most of our world moves into the online arena, and should be addressed in further depth.

Bonus Assignment: 2020: A Space Odyssey

Its no secret that the internet is growing at unfathomably rapid rates, and that soon we will all have high bandwidth access available all the time, anywhere.  The implications of a truly omnipresent internet are complicated and difficult to predict, even for the short term.  I believe as the internet becomes a greater presence in our lives, the psychology of social computer will merge with social psychology.  The principals that hold true in the real world will be the ones that stick around the longest. 

For example, the fundamental attribution error will always exist.  That is something that is ingrained in our psyches and won't change regardless of our medium of communication.  But lets look at some of my favorite theories from the semester.

Hyper-personal.  This theory seems to have become the go-to theory for 245.  I'm not sure how, but maybe because it is so easily applicable and we've all experienced it before.  Regardless, I would expect this theory to get modified in the future.  As the internet becomes more high bandwidth, and the use of videos and pictures becomes the default (as opposed to text) the number of cues available online will begin to match those in f2f.  I would believe this would lead to a decrease in over-attribution as people would have enough cues to make an accurate judgement.  On the other hand though, I would expect an increase in selective presentation.  Being able to portray yourself differently than you do in the real world is one of the draws to the internet, and as so the technology will have to answer it.  Digital cameras already have the ability to make you more photogenic.  The newest version of iChat lets you video chat with fake backdrops you can set. I'm actually playing with it right now, its really really cool.  So people will get a better idea of who they are talking too, but people will also have more tools for deception.  

I also would predict an increase in problematic internet usage.  People are already addicted to information, and turn to the internet for their fixes.  As it becomes an even larger part of our lives, the community gets larger, and the capabilities increase, and it becomes more available, I anticipate more people having a hard time distinguishing between their real lives, and their digital ones.  At the same time, people might experience information overloads, as they can never really leave the office, or have a moment to themselves, all sorts of other psychological disorders could become associated with being plugged in at all times.  On the other hand, online support networks would be more available, and people might be able to get the help they need right there on the internet. 

I think this class covers a wide variety of theories dealing with interaction online.  I think the course could be improved by covering the subject in ways other than the theoretical.  If we learned about how experts apply these theories, and what their implications are in the real world, for example how programmers design systems as a result of findings.  I also think it would be cool if we learned more about what's going on in Professor Hancock's top secret deception facilities.  

Thank you blogosphere, we've had some great times.  I appreciate your insightful comments, witty posts, and the aid in understanding dense academic readings.   

bonus assignment

In the future, the internet will become more and more prominent in everyday life- both having to do with relationships and not. I recently read somewhere that online shopping has sky-rocketed over the holiday season this year as compared to past years. And it’s not even December 5 yet. People would rather stay at home and shop then go out in the cold, traffic, crowds and look for gifts. The internet is the “one stop shop” without even having to leave the house. You can find anything and everything for that special person. The internet is easy. That, I think, is a big part as to why it is so important in many people’s lives. Whether it’s a relationship you are in, or an object you need to buy, or news you want to read, the internet has it all. And in the future, who knows what amazing new things people will come up with in the online world. It’s mind blowing to think of the possibilities. I think most of the theories we discussed in class will continue to be a factor for a long time in the online world. No matter how much more technologically advanced we get, people will still treat rich and lean mediums the same way. People will still find it often times easier to talk and share things about themselves online rather then in person. People will lie about their height or weight or college degrees or personality in order to be accepted and in order to not be lonely. People will fall in love, fall out of love, make business deals, argue and agree. And this will happen all online. But people will still interact outside of the online world. Still have families, settle down, have neighborhood bbq’s, go to church, the grocery store and the gym. School will still be a place where kids learn how to behave and interact with peers. Don’t get me wrong, this will all still happen. But there will be a constant theme- an overriding power which is rapidly beginning to show its force. And that, my friends, is the internet: Email, chatrooms, AIM, blogs. It will all become more present and even more part of everyday life. The challenge for the future will be to keep those face to face interactions strong and not let everything turn into CMC.