Online Impression Formation

In my attempt to test out several communication theories, I decided to join a synchronous chat room. The chat room I chose to enter was the “just friends” chat room via www.icq.com (a chat room website). When I first arrived to the room, I was asked to enter a nickname. Considering last week’s Wallace reading, I spent some time deciding on the person I wanted to project to the chat room starting with my screen name. I chose the name Skiierdude88 due to my love for skiing and the fact that I am a dude.

Upon entering I was completely disoriented, but after a few minutes I saw that the group was discussing which was better, dark chocolate or white chocolate. I introduced myself by saying Hi, and then began talking to “Eric_336” about how we wished that someone would say something more interesting. We began to talk in a separate chat, and Eric told me he was going to Manhattan University. He then told me he was studying medicine and I told him I was a business major who hoped someday I’d end up in Manhattan. This seemed to confirm the notion of mutual sharing, where in one person sharing a piece of information can compel the other to share the same piece of information with the other.

Even though there were less channels of communication via the chat room, it was very easy to see that Eric was very agreeable. Throughout our entire conversation there was no point in which there was a clash of any views or ideas. Perhaps this was because through just text he was able to fake his way out of situations that may have been much more conflicting in person.

The conversation with Eric certainly followed the hypothesis of hyperpersonal theory. In the beginning of the conversation Eric had said that he lived in Manhattan and was studying medicine yet I had already created a vivid image of him in my head. I formed this image based on exaggerating his negative attribute such as poor grammar use and long lulls between my responses and his. This would be an example of the over-attribution process in which I used a few cues which led to stereotypes and over exaggeration of his personal traits. Furthermore, I found myself engaging in selective self presentation, only talking about the things that I really thought were interesting, like school, sports etc. rather than focusing on the boring stuff.