When I was a freshman in high school (seems like such a long, long time ago) one of my friends introduced me to a girl who was in some of my classes and that I sorta knew. She had this weird propensity for carrying around large amounts of candy so I knew her in the back of my head as “the candy girl”. She and I were in vastly different social groups. She tended to flock to the more intelligent folks while I enjoyed the comforts of the behind-the-high-school smokers crew. For whatever reason or another, we ended up instant messaging each other and ended up maintaining a rather close internet relationship, although not really in person. Not because we avoided each other but really just because we never crossed paths. There are a few reasons related to McKenna’s notes that I feel allowed our relationship to progress. The first would be identifiably. This idea of hers relates to the notion that since people are anonymous, they relay more information than they would if they were close friends with you. Even though me and this girl had met before, 99% of our relationship was conducted online and we exchanged more detail than I think we would have if we were in person. I believe this was due to our relative anonymity. Second, I think the “removal of gating features” had an impact on our friendship. The removal of gating features implies that in online spaces items such as physical attraction and shyness are not as apparent. This girl happens to be rather shy and the abilities of CMC allowed this to not shine through so she was much easier to talk to. Finally, I believe interactional control impacted the relationship. This step refers to the fact that people will choose the channel where they have the most control. I feel than in her case, her relative shyness allowed to her have the most control in an online environment. This also allowed her to present herself in the most effective way. Overall I found Mckenna’s steps more relevant in CMC to many of the lessons we have learned so far. Almost all of them are applicable to the online environment.
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Everyday we're told that the line between our online persona and real life persona is blurred more and more. If we believe this, then one would think that CMC would be almost as natural as calling someone or running into them in the halls. In many cases this is true, but in some examples, like yours, it seems that some people would prefer to keep things separate. “The Candy Girl” sounds like the kind of person who would be more comfortable interacting in a mediated environment. I know that even for me I feel more comfortable interacting with certain people online than I do in face to face communications. The examples of people having online affairs is a more extreme example of people who might prefer to keep their relationship separate from their “real life”. As we integrate online communications and personas more and more into our daily life, we may find it difficult to maintain the same sort of separation we do now.
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