11 My Sister: A Guinea Pig For Wallace

Unfortunately, I’m not one to really to stay informed with family related events and I was awkwardly surprised when I came home one day this summer to find a 22-year-old named Jon living in my house. He was up from Texas and planned on staying for 5 days for my twin sister. Now, to be honest, my sister doesn’t get to Texas much, in fact, she has never been. Also, I don’t necessarily recall her mentioning anything about having this guy over before—perplexing I know. So, after he left back home to Texas of course, I questioned how she met this guy and the online saga began to unfold.

Apparently, she met this nerdy music major (to my relief he is just a nerd and not a crazy killer), on MySpace. The two sparked their online affair basically because of intersection frequency. She listens a lot of the same music as him and they found each other writing on different pages for particular bands, and they started communicating with each other. She explained that they’ve been ‘friends’ online for a while, but only recently had they started messaging each other through MySpace. But the messaging, after finding that they had many similar interests, moved off of MySpace, and to Instant Messaging, a more synchronous space. Cues in her story alluded to an increasing amount of disclosure, and reciprocity. Soon they moved their conversation to a more intimate medium, the phone and probably only sixth months after they started messaging, he was taking a trip up to New York.

Here is where we can go back to the beginning of the semester and apply Wallace’s four factors (physical attractiveness, proximity, common ground, and disinhibition effects). Although Wallace suggests that CMC’s relationship begin with getting to know someone then physical attractiveness becomes important, my sister’s relationship began with an interest yet; she admittedly says that his and her ability to selectively self present online was one of the initial factors. She was attracted to him, not only because of similar interests but also because of his MySpace pictures.

Next, proximity played a huge role because, as mentioned before, they met each other on the account of intersection frequency. Their improved relationship came with even more intersection frequency on Instant Messaging, which coincides with Wallace’s predictions stating that increased proximity will result in increased relational development.

Common ground certainly played a role in furthering their relationship. They endless mutually shared beliefs, assumptions, and propositions—all part of the common ground factor. Furthermore, the picture, their conversation, and most likely their MySpace profiles contributed to a positive Law of Attraction, which according to Wallace, means that one is attracted to people they have common ground with.

Finally, Wallace’s disinhibition effects also apply here. In essence, disinhibition refers to the willingness to self-disclose. The Hyperpersonal Model plays a huge role here where people form impressions quicker, and possibly stronger with fewer cues, and impression management. Because of a decreased public self-awareness, we may be more apt to disclose more about ourselves online (Jonison, 2001) In my sister’s case, this probably had a huge role, as they were disclosing more and more because of possible impressions formed early due to a lack of cues and selective self presentation on both parts.

Wallace’s four factors all seem to overlap, but still prove to be a good foundation for analyzing relationship development online. Recently, Jon came up the weekend before Thanksgiving for another visit. I wonder how the face-to-face relationship will turn out?