Chattabodz

For this assignment, I decided to enter a chatroom called "Chattabodz" and observe they way that people interacted with one another. This is a chatroom created for people to find love or make friends. It allows for people to use a webcam or post a picture so that other people in the chatroom can see whom they are talking with. It was very interesting to see how the nickname that you use in a chatroom can affect how many people want to chat with you. When I first entered the chatroom as "Soccerchick11", I wasnt recieving any invitations to converse in a private chat. However, when I re-entered as "sexysoccergrl", I had almost immediate responses from multiple people to engage in private conversations. This shows that it really makes a difference and sends out a certain first impression by the username that one chooses. I decided to accept the invitation for a private chat with "dongboy25"... Im sorry but I cant help from laughing at this username. My first impression came from his username, which made me think that he is in college and is a boy. I thought what adult or child would use the word "dongboy" to identify himself? Anyways, he started the conversation by telling me his age, sex, and location and then asking for my information. At first, he seemed pretty cold. It took him a long time to respond to my questions, and answered them with one word answers. But as I continued to speak with him he opened up more and seemed like a nice person. After about 2 minutes he told me that he was a college student, and about his hobbies. By the continuous use of smiley faces and the acronym "lol" (laugh out loud), I could infer that he was happy and easy going person. However at the end of our conversation, I think that my first impressions of "dongboy25" were exaggerated and not very detailed. I don't feel like I really know this person well and my interaction supported the CFO perspective because there was a significant lack of cues leading to my original negative and undeveloped impression of him. However I also believe that in this situation, the social information processing theory applies because the transmittion of information took a long time over this internet conversation. Even though I dont think I get to know this person very well, as the conversation progressed, I felt that I knew "dongboy25" better than in the beginning of the conversation.