One of my new Facebook friends was Bill. Once he accepted my add request I started to read through his profile so we could get to know each other since we had never met before. I soon learned that we both had really similar tastes in music and that we liked a lot of the same TV shows and movies. We also seemed to have a similar sense of humor based on our conversations back and forth. After a few weeks of being just Facebook friends, we finally got the chance to meet each other face to face at our District Convention in Utica. We got the chance to spend a lot of time together throughout the weekend and got the chance to know each other even better. I was able to learn a lot more about Bill and we continue to see each other periodically throughout the year and he’s now one of my best friends. We can joke around with each other and we have been able to travel around New York together and do a lot of projects through Circle K.
When my relationship with Bill moved offline my experience fits both the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) and SIDE Theory. Although it seemed that Bill and I had a lot in common while we were talking online there were still some things that I didn’t know and wasn’t sure how to interpret. First, Bill only had a few pictures so I found it difficult to assess what Bill was like outside of Facebook and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Also, I saw that Bill was a volunteer firefighter and I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that and how important it was to him. After we met, a lot of the uncertainty that I had about Bill was greatly reduced and I felt more comfortable talking with him and I was able to see that he really was like what he portrayed on his Facebook profile.
Also, when Bill and I met online we both knew we were a part of the same social category of “Circle K member” but we had never worked together at a Circle K project or at a district event so we saw each other as individuals when we were interacting on Facebook. However, once we met at District Convention our group identity of “Circle K member” became much more salient and this also helped to make the transition from online to offline positive, which supports the prediction made by SIDE Theory.
Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-what-happens-when-you-meet-your.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-11-i-guess-its-not-really.html
1 comment:
You did a good job relating your experience in leaving virtuality to URT and SIDE. I find it interesting how some relationships that start online can be so bad and other be so successful like in your post. In many cases I feel like hyperpersonal theory plays a part in that overattributions are made. In some cases these attributions are correct which give a boost to modality switching but in other cases when these attributions are wrong it greatly hinders a move from virtuality to face to face. However some common ground attributes such as your sharing of Circle K membership gives you something to fall back on if other attributions are incorrect. In this way I think that people with a few common elements will have a much easier time in a modality switch than users with a high level of uncertainty.
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