Assignment #5, Option 1 - A Long-Distance Friendship

Although it isn’t a long-distance romantic relationship, one of my best friends and I are in a long-distance friendship right now while she is at college in Europe. Our current relationship is 100% computer mediated and definitely displays some of Wallace’s attraction factors and McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors.

Wallace's (1999) attraction factors are as follows:

1. Physical Attraction
2. Proximity (familiarity breeds attraction)
3. Common Ground (mutually shared beliefs, assumptions, and propositions foster attraction)
4. Disinhibition Effects (which involves the hyperpersonal process)

My long-distance friendship with my friend strongly supports Wallace's idea of proximity as an attraction factor. The idea of proximity is that online-familiarity flows from intersection frequency (seeing the same person often in chatrooms, MUDs, blogs, facebook, forums, or the gaming world). A few weeks ago, my friend and I had not spoken much because of technological issues (first, she didn't have an international cell phone, then I discovered I couldn't dial out international numbers on my cell phone). I felt like I was drifting away from her because we only would send each other brief, vague messages on facebook. Recently, however, we both downloaded the program Skype, which allows us both to videochat and use synchronous chat at the same time. Being able to speak to her often and for extended periods of time (Skype to Skype is free!) has made me feel reconnected to her, and has reestablished our platonic attraction. The more often we speak, or intersect online, the closer I feel to her, which exemplifies Wallace's proximity attraction factor.

McKenna's (2007) notes the following as relationship facilitation factors:

1. Identifiability
2. Removal of Gating Features (In online-spaces, gates, like physical attraction, master status cues, and shyness, are not apparent)
3. Interactional Control (People will choose the channel where they'll have most control [O'Sullivan] and they will use selective self-presentation [hyperpersonal model])
4. Connecting to similar others ( people can connect across space & time and with social networks)
5. Getting the Goods: (the ability to get info about others prior to meeting)

Within McKenna's idea of identifiability are two effects. The "stranger on the train effect" is when people feel more anonymous, so they disclose more about themselves, and relationship development increases. The "stranger in the crowd effect" says that when people are more identifiable (through blogs, social networking sites, or google), they will also disclose more about themselves, thus leading to relationship development.

Also, in relation to self-disclosure, Joinson (2001) states that computer mediated communication, in general, has high levels of self-disclosure. More specifically, one of his ideas are that with visual anonymity, you have increased private self-awareness, and are more likely to self-disclose.

Since my friend and I already knew each other prior to our online-relationship, Joinson's theory of identifiability is more relevent to our situation. When I am writing facebook messages or long chats to my friend, I am visually anonymous, meaning that at the time that I am communicating, nobody can see me. This leads to private self-awareness, which is reflection on the self. Ultimately, this self-awareness leads to increased self-disclosure, which facilitates relationship formation. When I am writing to her, I can write in a stream of concious format, and just type whatever I'm thinking as I'm thinking it. This leads me to come to my own personal conclusions (which is like the idea of "how can I know what I think until I see what I say?"), which in turn are sent to my friend. Since I disclose all of these feelings to her because of my private self-awareness, she, in turn, discloses a lot of her personal thoughts and feelings back to me, which goes along with the principle of social equity.

Finally, in class, we talked about how we like those to whom we self-disclose, and we like those who self-disclose to us. Since my friend and I shared intimate stories and feelings with each other, our bond tightened and we felt closer to each other.

Overall, my long-distance friendship with my friend supports Wallace's idea of proximity as an attraction factor and McKenna's (and Joinson's) idea of identifiability and self-disclosure.