Post 1: Initiating and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships

I felt that this week the aspect of maintaining an interpersonal relationship was more prominent for me than initiating an interpersonal relationship. This is due to the fact that through computer mediated communication I find that I usually do not initiate any type of new relationship with some I do not know. This is due mainly to the fact, in which Donath questions, that someone's credibility online is questionable, especially if you do not know them. Donath poses the question of "how do we know whether or not to believe what we are told by someone?" (2001) and this seems like an extremely important question when meeting and creating a relationship with someone that you have never met face to face. It is a scary thought to think of who you think you might be talking to and who you are really talking to, not to be extreme but you never know if you're speaking with a hacker, rapist, creeper, etc. You are potentially placing yourself in a very dangerous position by initiating a relationship through CMC.

On the other hand computer mediated communication has proven to help maintain some of my interpersonal relationships with old friends, new friends, family members, and my significant other. Barnes suggests that "for some people, the Internet can begin to replace face-to-face encounters and the telephone as a way to stay 'in touch' with friends and family" (2003) and it seems that the more I speak with friends the more I find out that they use CMC heavily in communicating with their friends and family members, especially if they live out of town or out of state. I have a friend who lives in Alaska and she emails her grandparents, siblings, and parents often, and most of them excluding her mom have a facebook page. Another friend of mine can now communicate with both of her parents online on facebook and even on twitter. The advent and popularization of these social networking sites make it possible for friends and family to connect with each other, but sometimes I think to too much extent. Not that connecting is bad or anything but I mean with a lot of these networking sites we typically post too much information about ourselves or content that would be deemed inappropriate for the parental viewing eye. These sites are great with staying in touch and keeping up to date with friends and family but sometimes having everyone know EVERYTHING that you are doing (ie: if you update your status a lot on fb) all the time can be overwhelming and accidental. In Rosen's 2007 article it is mentioned that a couple got engaged and they both posted it on facebook, but then they broke off the engagement and every single person on each person's networks knew about it as soon as changes and updates were made to the relationship status. It's like these sites are real time live updates of your lives and people who you're not so close with, find out instantly. It's weird because in real life you wouldn't call everyone in your contact list to let them know that you received a root canal, but on these sites when you mention these things, it's like you opened up your online contact list and broke the news.

Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Donath, J. S. (2001). Being real. In K. Goldberg (Ed.), The robot in the garden: Telerobotics and telepistemology in the age of the internet (pp. 297-311). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Rosen, C. (2007). Virtual friendship and the new narcissism. The New Atlantis (electronic version).