Technology has a big impact on our society. Tools with a good usability and affordance become wide spread and accepted, changing the way in which we engage with activities and changing our behaviour and identities. From the beginning of the internet, and even more since the increasing popularity and the consequent impact on our society, there is a vital interest in the ways which humans interact with the computers, and the ways in which humans interact with each other using computers. Early popular and scholarly debate viewed on-line relationships as shallow, impersonal and often hostile because of the tendency of the early psychologists, to use pre-existing theories to internet behaviour. By arguing that interpersonal attitudes are primarily conveyed using visual clues, while the verbal channel contains only interparty, task-oriented, cognitive material, Short et al. (1976) argued in their social presence theory, that if the visual channel is removed like e.g. in the case of telephone and email communication, what remains is simply the capacity to transmit the task-oriented material and not the social, interpersonal information. Similar the social context cues theory, where Kiesler et al. (1984) argues that people loose ‘social cues’ or social context cues when they communicate using computers instead of face-to-face communication. The related studies seemed to confirm the theories. However, later studies e.g. by Walther (1992) through his social information processing model concluded that users of CMC have the same interpersonal needs as face-to-face communicators, and that CMC is quite capable of transferring social information between people if not restricted by time, meaning the users are given time to develop the adequate skills to convey the social information and considering the slower ‘transmission-form’ of typing compared to talking. Walter’s Meta-analyses of 21 earlier experiments on CMC confirmed that and on the contrary, that, given the time, CMC matches the ‘socialness’ of face-to-face communication. In other studies, CMC groups where rated even higher in most aspects of relational communication than the face-to-face groups, regardless of timescale. Malcolm R. Parks and Kory Floyd tried now in their study to establish the prevalence of personal relationship in on-line settings, the basic demographics or relational participants, the levels of development achieved in on-line relationships, and their links to off-line or real-life settings by conducting a survey around four main questions:
1. How often do personal relationships from in internet newsgroups
2. Who has on-line personal relationships
3. How developed do on-line personal relationships typically become
4. Do on-line relationships migrate to other settings
Their goal was to provide an empirical reference point for evaluating conflicting visions of social life in cyberspace, opposing the rather contradictory and often anecdotal data available up to now.
The internet newsgroups and their contributors were selected through a two-stage sampling procedure. At stage one, 24 newsgroups were randomly selected from published reference lists of groups in each of four major Usenet newsgroup hierarchies. Stage two consisted of a random selection of 22 people from a list of those who had posted messages to these selected 24 groups over a several day period. Surveys were then sent to these 528 prospective participants by direct email. The analyses of the 176 respondents confirmed the typical newsgroup member as being 32 years old, more likely male than female, and more likely to be single than married. Unfortunately there is not mentioning about ethical considerations, information passed along to the participants or guidelines followed during the analyses and publication of the gained information. However, the age of the participants and the nature of the questions are not critical if confidentiality and anonymity is sufficiently considered. Although the time period of messages posted for the selection of participants is rather short and might not necessarily single out the ‘typical’ newsgroups user, the chosen methodology serves the aim of collecting empirical data, makes the study repeatable and enhances its generalisability.
The primary finding was that just over 60% of the people in the random sample reported that they had formed a personal relationship of some kind with someone they had first contacted through a newsgroup. The study also revealed that more women than men reported forming a personal relationship and that those who formed a personal relationship contributed to more groups than those who did not. The presentation and interpretation of the findings along the four main questions added considerably to the understanding and provided a useful link between the data obtained and the interpretation. The rather vague term ‘relationship’ was subdivided into categories of opposite-sex relationships and same-sex relationships according to additional analyses. Although statistically not significant, it provides a better understanding. The fact that so many of the respondents across so many different types of newsgroups developed a personal relationship justifies the general conclusion that criticism of on-line interactions as being impersonal and hostile are overdrawn and confirms more recent theories and studies e.g. of Walther (1992-1996) and Chilcoat and DeWine (1985). The question of who has on-line personal relationships was researched along the line of demographic characteristics and patterns of Internet involvement by comparing people who did and did not have an on-line personal relationship. The finding that women are more likely to form a personal relationship than men lacks the explanation why, and needs further research in order to provide a valuable empirical reference point. The survey also shows that those who had formed on-line relationships had been reading their particular newsgroup longer and contributed more often than those without. The authors’ interpretation, that developing personal relationships on-line is more a function of simple experience than of demographic or personality factors is not sufficiently backed up with evidence and cannot be derived and concluded from the data of the survey. Depth of development of on-line personal relationships was measured along seven items based on the theory of the relationship development process. Because there was no comparison sample available to evaluate levels of development, a theoretic midpoint of each scale as a reference point was used. Albeit a valid method, it does not permit a conclusion of the same quality like a comparison towards other samples and the findings and subsequent conclusion, the suggestion of moderate levels of commitment in the sample as a whole divided in less developed and highly developed personal relationships do not permit a detailed enough conclusion necessary for a satisfactory answer to the question. Nearly two thirds of the respondents with personal relationships are using communication channels other than the computer. These findings permit the conclusion and are supported by other studies, that there is a need to overcome the limitations of computer-mediated channels by adding audio and video. This fact is adding to the understand of recent developments like the popularity of Skype and MSN Messenger whereas the conclusion that people are not drawing a clear line between their on-line and off-line activities is not sufficiently supported by evidence from the survey but rather a fact of a general tendency of an increased interconnectivity and blurred boundaries between the various activities of people in their daily lives.
The four basic questions, which served as a guideline to examine the relational world actually being created through the internet discussion groups, provide a valuable base for an empirical reference point for evaluating conflicting visions of social life in cyberspace. By moving away from earlier and predated study composition (small groups, limited periods of time) towards surveying an ongoing ‘event’ or ‘phenomena’ supports and provides empirical evidence to theories like the social information processing model of Walter (1992) where he proposed that it is only the reduced ‘bandwidth’ and the inability to carry aural and visual cues of CMC, which may take longer to convey relational and personal information. Also the findings about the communicative code change confirm theories about acquiring the necessary skills and means to exchange and convey social information. The additional finding that nearly two thirds of those developing personal relationships on-line also used other communication channels challenges the beliefs that newsgroups participants are limited and are denied vocal and visual information. It indicates an expansion in channel use and represents information not found in current theories. In order to get a more complete picture about the relational world actually being created through the internet, research needs to be extended to other CMC settings and relationship development for a better understanding of the matter.
As with almost all new technologies, among affordance and usability it takes mainly time to find its place and usage in society. The mainstream use of the internet today confirms the important social place of it in society and empirical data provided by surveys like this one adds to a broader understanding of tendencies. Through this study we might understand that theories based on reduced-cues can not provide answers given the current rate of development in network technology. It sheds light on changes like the blurring of the boundaries between the relationships in cyberspace and those in real life through providing empirical evidence supporting models like the hyperpersonal communication of Walther (1996) and it enables us to move away from viewing cyberspace as an exotic and special place towards an ordinary, even mundane social meeting place and through that, enabling us to develop new perspectives and theories. The use of quantitative methods and the subsequent outsider view allows for a replication of the data and provides a high reliability and generalisability. It can be compared with other data whereas a qualitative approach would have given more detailed account but less empirical reference for which this study is aiming for. The ‘real-live’ approach which was chosen above an experimental setting aims for the same direction, to evaluate conflicting visions of social life in cyberspace through empirical data in the original environment.
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References
Joinson, A. and Littleton, K., (2003) Computer-mediated communication: living, learning and working with computers, in Brace, N. and Westcott, H., (eds), (2003), Applying Psychology, Milton Keynes, Open University.
Parks M.R. and Floyd, K., (1996) Making friends in cyberspace, in the Journal of Communication, 1996, vol.46, no.1, Winter, pp.80-97.
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