5. Keeping the Long Distance Relationships Alive Online

The Internet has allowed for a number of relationships to grow and prosper over time despite earlier beliefs argued by Cues Filtered Out (CFO) perspectives that argued that the Internet was a cold and cruel place. On the contrary, a great deal of research has supported the Hyperpersonal Model which argues that the Internet always for much more intense impressions and relationships to be formed through the Internet. There are a number of factors that help to form and maintain these relationships. McKenna argues that there are five main relationship facilitation factors online: identifiability, removal of gating features, interactional control, connecting to similar others, and getting the goods. I have seen these relationship facilitation factors at work in my own life in my long distance relationship.
I’ve been dating my girlfriend for almost 2 years now, which means that I started a long distance relationship during my freshman year here at Cornell. Because we’re about 4 hours apart and both extremely busy with both school and extracurricular activities we’ve had to rely heavily on cell phones and AIM for a vast majority of our communication. Although we always set times to meet up for a weekend the time can often be limited and our communication is for the most part mediated in some form. I feel that McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors are most clearly evident in our communication in AIM.
First, using AIM allows us each to have interactional control over our conversations. This means that we can select what we want to share with each other and potentially keep other things hidden. It allows us to choose our language carefully and word things in the right way to make sure that the correct message is being conveyed. We even have control over what form of media we choose to use for various conversations whether it’s the phone, AIM, or e-mail.
I’ve noticed interactional control in our relationship mostly through our selection of media; we tend to use AIM when there is something difficult to talk about because it allows us to think about what to say and allows us to be as clear as possible through our choice of words. For example, when my girlfriend first started college all of a sudden there were these pictures tagged of her on Facebook with other guys with their arms around her. I really didn’t know what to make of these pictures at first so I brought it up to her in AIM because I felt that I would have control over the situation and would be able to send her the links to the pictures I was talking about. Not wanting to seem like a crazy-jealous boyfriend I chose my words carefully and did my best to not sound accusatory. In the end I learned that the guys were actually her suitemate’s boyfriends and they were trying to make her feel better because she was sad that I wasn’t there that weekend when all of her friends had their boyfriends there.
I’ve also noticed McKenna’s relationship facilitator factor of connecting to similar others through our interactions online. Connecting to similar others goes along with the common ground principle argued by Wallace saying that it is easier to identify with people with similar interests. Connecting with similar others is also easy to identify with the mutual friends feature on Facebook.
Since we have been dating for almost two years Kristen and I have had a lot of time to self disclose to each other and learn a lot about each other over the past two years (and the year and a half we knew each other before we started dating). Although we differ in our political affiliation and a little bit in our musical taste, we’ve learned that we really do have a lot in common from our favorite TV shows, to movies and to more serious matters like what we want in a family in the future. We are also really involved in Circle K, a community service organization. This has allowed to us to see another side of each other as we perform community service throughout our hometowns and around New York. I’ve been able to see that we both interact with other people in a very similar way and that we are both rather altruistic just through our interactions in Circle K. And finally, we have 211 mutual friends on Facebook just adding to how we both connect with similar others.
Although it can be hard at times being in a long distance relationship the internet and cell phone have really made it possible to carry on a meaningful and serious relationship for a substantial amount of time. The relationship facilitator factors that McKenna has introduced really capture how individuals interact online and how the Internet does allow for meaningful relationships to form through multiple interactions.

My Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/51-friend-nobody-likes.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-option1-although-i-have-not-seen-him.html