Assignment #2

The online space I entered to meet someone and form an impression was with the chatroom feature of meebo.com. Meebo is a website where you can log in with AIM, ICQ, etc. using a browser instead of downloading a client. I made up a screen name and entered some of the chats. I found most to be overrun with people who were obnoxiously posting, talking dirty, or just being argumentative. I finally found a room about Talib Kweli where users were having “normal” conversation.

Before typing any messages I watched the chat for a while. One of the features of Meebo’s chat rooms is that users can put YouTube videos in a queue and everyone in the same room sees the video simultaneously. This added an interesting element to the typical anonymous synchronous online space. Since everyone was seeing and hearing the video stream it seemed to let people connect more so than in the chat rooms without the video enabled. Even though it isn’t analogous to face to face nonverbal and vocal cues, it did add more information to the opinions that were being posted and seemed to increase social presence.

After talking with the group for a bit about the videos being played, I messaged a user Scienterrific. (As an interesting aside, we never explicitly asked what gender the other was, but I immediately assumed Scienterrific was a girl from her pink font, and then thought of this person as a girl for the rest of the conversation). I found myself drawn to this name more than the others and I realized that I “judged” the people from the little information I had. As an engineer I found this name funny and thought we would have a lot in common. We started chatting and asked some questions serving as interpersonal probes. I asked her if she was in college and she talked about how she recently graduated, but “LOVVEEEEED college.” When she said this I felt a connection since it is my last year in college and I am having a great time here. We talked about where we are from and through our conversation, found out that she went to the same art school as my mother, and that we both love living near the beach.

My observations strongly support the Hyperpersonal Model. I didn’t disclose everything about myself but picked what I wanted to share. The few similarities that we did have were amplified due to over-attribution. I felt like we had a lot in common and had similar personalities from few details. After talking I felt like we also exhibiting a degree of behavioral confirmation. When we had something in common, I overstated my enthusiasm and acted the way I thought she saw me and have a feeling she did the same. The conversation we had was very pleasant, even though we talked for only twenty minutes, I felt that this was someone who could be my friend in “real life.” I came away from the experience thinking that Scienterrific was warm, slightly extraverted, very open, very agreeable, and very conscientious (I don’t feel I have enough information to judge on neuroticism). Since this person was friendly, funny, and open during our short conversation, I instinctively felt that this is how her personality probably is all the time.

I found this online activity to be interesting, especially because I am generally a skeptic about online interactions. I found myself experiencing many of the aspects of the Hyperpersonal Model we learned about in class.