It took me a long time to find a partner to chat with.
At first I tried AIM and Yahoo Messenger chat rooms. However, it was difficult to find non-relationship based chatrooms, and I moved on to the safer sounding Chat Family. Shockingly enough, after signing in with the name “Selina,” I was bombarded with many shall we call them “seductive” private messages. When I recovered from my disgust for the not so family-oriented lines, I decided to private message a nice looking screen name. I picked the screen name Sweet and Sassy on the assumption that this was a nice, young female. Within a few lines of text, I determined Sweet and Sassy was definitely female, nice, and generally not insane. She seemed warm and introverted, willing to share only when I prompted her with questions and hardly asking me any questions. Besides introverted, I interpreted her responses as agreeable because she answered with “I guess” and “lol” to my comments. I could assume she wasn’t highly educated because of some verbal cues like multiple spelling errors. However, she seemed nice because she kept apologizing for herself. A nonverbal cue I noticed was normal grammar, whereas most of the other chat room people were typing with shorthand or slang.
I had to work pretty hard to keep the conservation going, but she did answer honestly about her desire to leave her rural town, go to college, join a sorority and meet new friends. She didn’t seem to want to talk about herself or show off as many other people in the chat room were. She admitted to joining chat rooms as often as possible, but insisted it’s possible to weed out the perverts. Although I had a generally positive impression, I definitely had a hard time bonding with her because of the limited cues. My feelings towards her would follow the CRO theory, where I developed a neutral (leaning towards negative) impression of her as the conversation dragged on. I got tired of probing her for more information and started to think of her as a boring conversationalist. I didn’t find myself over-attributing any one observation or creating exaggerated impressions. I was surprised she didn’t want to ask me more questions. (Perhaps she follows the hyperpersonal theory and created her own imaginary version of “Selina.”)
3 comments:
Hi Linda,
I really enjoyed your post about your night out as “Selina”. I too found it very difficult to connect to people via chat rooms on-line. All of those private messages are really difficult to navigate through to find an actual person, especially with automated messages. I really liked your perspective about how non verbal cues such as Sweet and Sassy not being very responsive and introverted let to your feelings of neutrality and coldness. I experienced very similar problems in my chat conversations; however it led me to a hyperpersonal conclusion based upon the increased time I had to let my imagination run wild and place stereotypes upon the person I was chatting with. I wonder if your interactions with others would have differed had you chosen different names?
Hey Linda!
Very nice post! I had similar trouble getting my target to really open up. We talked about some things very candidly, but most of our conversation was on a superficial level. And perhaps, 'Sweet and Sassy' was less interested to talk to you because you weren't 'Slick Rick.' It's always a gamble as to what sort of interaction your target is willing to participate in and what they are looking for. However, don't forget what we learned in class- the best way to get more out of your target is to divulge some sort of personal information yourself! These mutual confessions might have brought your experience into a more personal realm in which you could experience more of the information you needed to form an impression. Note: Spelling errors are not necessarily an indication of education level- correct spelling is not very highly valued in many psychological spaces. Her lack of attention to these details might just be due to her attempts to fit into her online environment.
-Brian
Hi Linda,
I, too, experienced a lot of sexually explicit private messages (PMs) from other users in an online dating chat room; however, I find it quite disturbing that you were bombarded with these “seductive” PMs in a “family-oriented” chat room because of your alias, Selina.
In regards to your experience with Sweet and Sassy, I agree that your impression of her would support the Cues Filtered Out (CFO) model because, as you stated, the lack of cues in the CMC environment led to your neutral (leaning towards negative) impression of her. Although Sweet and Sassy seems dull and uninteresting because of her unwillingness to pose questions and respond only when prompted, it would be interesting to learn that she is quite different in real life. This disparity between the perception we have of her through her conversation with you and her real-life personality may be due to several reasons: 1) perhaps, she was multitasking while she was in the chat room or 2) because she was interested in talking more extensively with a guy than a girl. Thus, she may have been providing you with one or two word responses to be polite. It’s always difficult to distinguish the online persona and the real persona of an individual, but I commend you for doing a great job with Sweet and Sassy based on the short conversation that you had with her.
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