My relationship with my friend, who I’ll call “Short” (and usually do, much to her dismay), is almost entirely through mediated communication. She has been one of my closest friends since freshman year of high school, but it is difficult to maintain the same relationship now that we’re far apart in college. We see each other for maybe one month total out of the whole year, as she goes to school in Ohio, our breaks don’t always line up, and we’ve both spent breaks working or traveling in other states. As a result, our relationship depends on phone calls, instant messaging, and (cell-phone) text messaging.
Wallace’s four attraction factors (physical attractiveness, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition) fit very well with how my relationship with Short has changed as we have had to depend on different communication mediums. The first factor, physical attraction, doesn’t have a significant role in our relationship as I’ve known her for 7 years, the first 4 of which included seeing her daily at school. At this point, physical appearance isn’t something either of us consider. Proximity, on the other hand, accounts for almost all the changes our relationship has gone through. We no longer see each other nearly daily. At first in college we would speak on the phone and online very frequently, for short periods of time. We tended to keep similar schedules and could see each other frequently on AIM. This maintained a sense of proximity as despite being far apart physically. The biggest change was when she studied in Europe for a semester last year. We couldn’t talk on the phone any longer. While skype was an option, it required much more planning to be around at the same time. Since she was 6 hours ahead, we were rarely on AIM at the same time. As a result we encountered each other infrequently. Despite talking for longer periods of time when we could, not having the same proximity certainly put some distance in our relationship.
I’ve found that disinhibition also shapes our relationship. Increased self-disclosure is most prominent when talking over the phone, as it is as synchronous a communication medium as we have available. Being able to speed up communication results in more in-depth discussions and encourages more self-disclosure. When we are limited to just instant messaging, our conversations tend to be more basic “What were you up to this weekend?” or “Did you see the newest episode of Veronica Mars?” questions. It becomes apparent that when we get the chance to speak on the phone, our relationship seems stronger. McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors (Identifiability, removal of gating features, interactional control, connecting to similar others, and getting the goods) seemed to not explain the changes in my relationship with Short as well as Wallace’s attraction factors. The relationship facilitation factors seemed like they would apply more significantly to relationships that began from a distance and explain how a relationship can develop. Short and I already had a very developed relationship, and Wallace’s factors, despite being named “attraction factors”, described how that existing relationship gradually changed with different communication mediums.
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http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-long-distance.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-option-1-from-union-square.html
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4 comments:
Elliot,
Nice job with this post. It is very informative, direct, and also provides the reader with good insight towards your relationship with ‘Short.’ I have a similar relationship with my friend who goes to WashU, and it has been hard coordinating schedules in order to see each other during the year. We talk frequently online, but it does not suffice all the time.
Your descriptions of Wallace’s attribution theories are right on. You explain and analyze them correctly, and do a nice job of expressing their usage to people who might be reading this outside of Comm 245. You put a lot of information into this post (more than was asked of the assignment, which is good), but sometimes too much information can detract the reader or make them lost. Possibly, reconsider that for next time, but I did not mind it.
Nice job and looking forward to more posts.
Hi Elliot,
I fully agree with each of David's comments. You discussed many key concepts that were essential in last week's lectures. You presented the concepts clearly and demonstrated their respective meanings accuratly.
The relationship you chose to discuss seemed appropriate for the assignment. Various aspects of your long distance friendship seemed to portray, to some extent, each of Wallace's attraction factors.
I too have had trouble keeping close ties with my best friend from high school. It was nice to read a blog that I could relate to. Overall, very nice job.
Elliot,
I enjoyed reading about your relationship with “Short” and the changes it went through. Like you, I have many friends from home at other colleges that require the use of mediated communication to maintain the friendships. Although I agree that the synchronicity of phone calls increases self-disclosure, I feel that sometimes AIM is my most disinhibited medium. The lack of non-verbal cues allows me to say things I might be afraid to say in an f2f setting or even over the phone, where my voice and the voice of my friend would be affecting the conversation. However, my AIM conversations can also often be boring and uninformative, like the typical “hey, sup, nm u, nm” pattern. Great post!
Hi Elliot,
I liked reading your post. I actually almost wrote about the same kind of thing for this assignment. I have one friend from home that lives next door and who I’ve known nearly all my life. We also had to transition to mostly CMC and telephone communication when we went to college. I noticed that our freshman year, we talked nearly daily in some form and frequently had long conversations on the phone. Now, as a senior, I still consider her one of my best friends, but we talk so much less than our freshman year. Calls go unreturned for longer than they used to, and I’ve noticed that since our paths cross so much less than they used to we have less to talk about. Did you experience this as well?
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