The psychological space that I entered was a forum on the website, www.prosportsdaily.com. This site is a great source for breaking sports news, and articles are posted from newspapers every day of the week for readers to enjoy. This site also contains a ‘rumors’ section and ‘forums’ section for viewers to deliberate and discuss current events in athletics.
The user I observed was on a forum discussing Pittsburg Steelers’ quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. The forum was designed to have people voice their opinions on whether he is overrated or not. This particular user’s personality could be labeled under neuroticism based on his/her interaction with others. In this situation, he/she sarcastically responded to previous posts which stated Ben Roethlisberger gets too much praise, by saying that the athlete is overrated because he won, one Superbowl. Other people on the forum were distraught at the fact that this person was apparently undermining the importance, significance, or feat of winning a Superbowl (possibly thinking that the original post was meant to say that he should be wining more championships to be considered a great player). This was an inadvertent mistake (due to sarcasm and lack of facial/verbal cues) and similar situations arose further along this forum. From this example is it apparent that computer mediated communication makes it difficult for people to understand tone, cues, and subtle meanings that face-to-face communication would clarify. The reason for distinguishing this person/situation as neuroticism, is due to the fact that these ‘let-downs’ by other ‘post-ers’ were bringing down the person’s morale; one time he/she stated that he/she should probably never post again because of such harsh ridicule. Having this occur would lead to the same person having to reject other ‘Big 5 Traits’ such as openness, because he/she would be too afraid to voice his/her own opinions.
This situation is one that I think happens a great deal in computer mediated communication. While conversing online, people are unable to pick up on cues and tones such as sarcasm, disgust, or happiness. This is a perfect example of why certain people become disengaged and upset with communicating online. It is important to note that after the interaction between those on the forum took place, the original ‘post-er’ explained his/her sarcasm and everything was solved. This situation follows the path of the Social Information Processing theory developed by Professor Joe Walther (1993), as the absence of social cues led to a slow transition of information between online users. SIP does not state that nonverbal cues are totally lost, but they are harder to pick up on and take longer to process while communicating online. It was difficult to pick up on the sarcasm used by the original person who posted, and thus the problem with computer mediated communication was picked up on. I find it interesting to see how other people, rather than myself and friends, were able to converse online and experience similar communication difficulties.
1 comment:
David,
I think it is interesting that you chose to observe someone rather than interacting with another person. Most of the posts I have read have been about interacting with another person and this includes my own. From your post I feel like because you observed the conversations you had a better grasp of the entire situation. Since you weren’t a firsthand participant you could better evaluate the user’s behaviors than someone who might get caught up in emotions when talking to him/her.
You clearly explained his behaviors and I agree that it seems like the social information processing theory is applicable for this situation. It does seem that the lack of visual and verbal cues led to misinterpretations and further stress. However maybe the hyperpersonal theory is also a factor here because maybe this is a subject that the user feels strongly about and since it is an environment focused on a specific topic others may be getting an exaggerated perspective of the forum user.
Great thoughts,
Lauren
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