Assignment 11

For this assignment, I chose to analyze an experience that my friend had while he was approaching his freshman year in college. Prior to going to school, many freshmen are prompted with Facebook as a means of networking with fellow students at their respective university. Some people develop relationships that they start online (through this medium), yet I believe most fail due to initial Facebook friendships being very superficial.

The latter description is what occurred to my friend at University of Florida. He would constantly tell me how many new friend requests he received online, and how many ‘hot girls’ accepted his friend request prior to actually getting on campus. Looking back on his decision to friend so many people, and additionally IM them, he regrets doing so as his actions were indeed a bit creepy, stalker-like, and do not truly reflect his own personality. The draw of Facebook and the excitement of college brought him to constantly check this online database and come in contact with anyone associated with the university. When he got to campus, he would creepily know surface level information about people and weird them out that he knew their name (and other information) beforehand. Time progressed during the first year, and my friend actually ended up disliking Florida. Since transferring, he has learned from his lessons of pre-campus ‘Facebooking’ and actually meets people first before ‘friending’ or messaging them online.

The example and description above fit with portions of the Hyperpersonal model made by Professor Joe Walther. Specifically, my friend overattributed information found on a person’s Facebook profile, to be true and endearing information about a person. As we have studied in class, people lie constantly about their profiles and can change any information they want (thus information should not be totally believed on a profile in Facebook). Moreover, as my friend would commit this overattribution error, people who my friend ‘talked to online,’ overattributed his traits to think that he truly is a stalker (which he is not). In addition, behavioral confirmation also can be found in this situation. As people found out that my friend knew information about people due to Facebook, my friend started to question himself and think that he possibly was being creepy because people thought those were his actions online. In thinking so, he changed his actions and made a change with his Facebooking life.

It is apparent from the facts stated above, that through the Hyperpersonal Model, this example of Facebook can be theoretically confirmed. I’m glad that my friend learned his lesson, and hopefully by reading this post, others will reevaluate their own Facebooking ways.

http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-mutual-friend.html

http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-11-aspereta.html