assignment 2

I entered a synchronous space on the internet, a random chat room and met one particular user, by the screen name of malehere. He was extremely forward, the first thing he asked was A/S/L? (Age /Sex/Location) Never having been in a chat room before I was taken aback at how quickly these personal questions were asked and answered. Not being able to rely on visuals or sound, I suppose knowing those social qualities (gender, age, race) helps people decide who to continue conversing with. Malehere was a twenty four year old male from San Francisco. We did not discuss race, but did go on to discuss livelihoods. He was in advertising, and I was a nurse from Manhattan. I found it is easy to ask and answer social questions, but harder to gauge malehere’s personality based on the top five traits through our brief online chat. He appeared warm, but almost in a suggestive inappropriate way. (I may or may not have been in a dating chat room by accident?) Malehere didn’t seem particularly extraverted, although that is a very visible characteristic, and hard to determine via CMC. He was fairly open, although I wasn’t really asking very personal questions. He wasn’t confrontational, and was fairly agreeable. At one point, I expressed discomfort about a comment he made, and he was quick to apologize and reprimand himself, in order to keep the social harmony in the conversation. It is hard to determine whether or not malehere was neurotic in the few minutes we chatted, but in that brief span of time, he didn’t seem anxious or nervous about anything. There wasn’t enough information to make a decision about his conscientiousness.
In order to form an impression of malehere I did engage in interpersonal discussion, including asking questions, and disclosing information about ourselves. (in my case fictional information) After chatting with malehere and getting to know him briefly, I agree with Walther’s Hyperpersonal Model and his Social Information Processing (SIP) model. In accordance with the SIP model, I felt I was able to exchange social information, despite the lack of nonverbal cues. I did feel that in an attempt not to appear too eager to chat, malehere did come off as kind of “cold,” at first. I think this may be due partly to what the hyperpersonal model describes as reallocation of cognitive resources. Because there were no non verbal cues to focus on, all I had to go by was the text, which may have caused me to overanalyze the conversation. I don’t feel as though malehere was selectively representing himself. If anything, he wanted to be agreeable, but not necessarily boastful. If we had continued talking, he may have been an example of what Walther describes as behavioral confirmation, malehere may have tried to behave the way he thought I perceived him to be. In conclusion, parallel to what the Hyperpersonal model states, my impression of malehere was less detailed, but more exaggerated or intense due to our chatting via CMC.