Discussion leader/summarizer: LindaYu

Main Points:

McKenna's article argues that social interaction on the internet and in face to face situations share characteristics as well as differences. Those differences lead to greater levels of self-disclosure, which is important in forming close relationships.

The differences mentioned:

• High levels of anonymity: Less likelihood that what is shared will be told to mutual acquaintances, which reduces the chances of possible backlash.
• Few gates: Physical and social characteristics such as appearance and low social skills that makes it less likely that relationships progress to levels where self disclosure can occur.
• Spaces of shared interest: If someone is in an online space devoted to a particular topic, it is likely that the person is interested in that topic. People can then see if there are other interests in common and thus help build a relationship.

People are more likely to disclose what they believe to be their real selves online if situations prevent them from doing so in offline situations. It would be more likely for them to form close relationships online as compared to people who reveal their real selves in offline situations.

McKenna's team tested the hypotheses by conducting two surveys and a lab experiment.

The first survey investigated how online location of the real self increased levels of online relationship formation and how well such relationships were integrated in offline life.

568 of 2000 surveys sent to selected newsgroup users were completed and returned. The hypothesis was mostly confirmed in that people who situate their real selves online have stronger relationships online, and those relationships usually grow faster than offline relationships.

Findings:

Women made stronger relationships than men did in both online and offline situations due to higher levels of self-disclosure.

More that 60% of respondents stated that they had contacted people they met first online in other forms such as via phone calls or by meeting face to face.

The second survey was a follow up two years later, which noted how well such relationships stood the test of time.

Findings:

Approximately 40% of previous respondents returned the second survey. From that population, about 70% of respondents noted that relationships built online was still extant, with 50% of those stating that the relationship had grown stronger, which compared favorably with relationships built in more traditional milieus.

The experiment investigated how much anonymity and gate features figure into liking someone in both online and offline situations.

The investigators chose 62 students from the college undergraduate psychology pool, half of those men and the other half women. Participants met a new person of the opposite gender twice under three conditions:

Findings:

Results showed that in the online condition, people liked whom they met significantly more after the second meeting. A face-to-face meeting after an online meeting also increased how much people liked each other.

In the online condition, people thought they had a better quality of conversations, and felt that they knew the other person better. In the offline condition, there were no correlations between liking the other and conversation quality. In the split meeting condition, the online interaction also revealed a higher level of conversation quality and liking of partner.

In the general discussion, the investigators note conflicting findings about online usage and loneliness from other studies, but point out that the Nie and Erbring study found that only 4.3% of the population surveyed spent less time with friends and family. In the Kraut study tracking new internet users, the initial increase of negative social effects disappeared at follow-up three years later.

Critique

The findings discovered seem to be sensible, but the other article this week contradicts the findings about the strength of online relationships. Is it because they studied different groups of people, i.e. newsgroup users versus mailing list users? The questionnaires used to study each group were also different, but that may not have anything to do with why the two studies had contrasting results.
PaulResnick: One possibility is that Cummings2002 is primarily asking questions about relationship maintenance (how well does online communication serve that), while this article is primarily asking about relationship formation.

Increased levels of anonymity increases the likelihood that people self disclose online, but it also seems to increase the likelihood of bad behavior because it lessens the risk of being discovered and condemned by peers and by communities.

Class Discussion

XiaomuZhou: Here are some of my questions after I read this paper. Question 1: As Study 2 was conducted two years after Study 1 to the same sampling group of people, do those participants really remember exactly that two years ago whom they communicated with on-line and with whom the relationship dissolved? Honestly, I doubt the accuracy of those data reported. (And there is a mistake on Table 1, first row of the data, 18% + 54% should be 72% not as printed 75%; or if 75% is correct, there is a mistake on either 18% or 54%.)Question 2: Study 2 found out that 71% of the romantic relationships that had begun on the Internet still intact 2 years later, which is much higher than that found in several previous studies of relationships that had initially developed face to face. What else does this data convey to us beyond just a percentage (71%)? What is the absolute number of the participants who had “serious and stead” romantic relationship started on-line? Is it convincing to us that romantic relationship initially developed on-line has more chances to last longer? Question 3: How do we define and value the intimacy and closeness of Internet relationship? One of my friends told me that her first experience to make friends on-line was that the virtual friend immediately told her what the color of his/her underwear was during their first talking. This case fits the finding 1 of this paper that Internet relationships tend to develop closeness and intimacy more quickly than do real-life relationship. I would argue that this kind of closeness and intimacy is different from that in real-life relationship (i.e. physical or face-to-face). The former closeness and intimacy occur between a real person and a virtual ‘entity’ although this virtual ‘entity’ is also a person. I am glad that this concern (the value of Internet relationship) has been discussed in another paper of this week’s reading (i.e. The Quality of Online Social Relationships) Question 4: As the sampling group is those who locate the true self more on-line, I was very concerned when I read one of the subtitles of Study 2 --" Becoming Friends on the Internet: Faster, Stronger, Deeper, Longer" and the discussions of this part, which sounds like trying to generalize the finding to all kinds of people.

PaulResnick on XiaomuZhou's Question 2: I agree that it seems implausible that there would be that big a difference. I suspect there was a significant response bias-- people who were happy about how their Internet relationships had gone may have been a lot more likely to respond to the follow-up survey.

LaurieBuis: After reading the articles for this week, I tend to agree with LindaYu in her assessment that there are differences between listservs and newsgroup communities in the sense that listserv communities were not found to have fostered such intimate relationships... I wonder if we could characterize a listserv as more of a network as opposed to a community... In addition, I agree with XiaomuZhou that I am skeptical of the finding that 71% of people maintained their online romantic relationships over the course of two years... Is it possible that the construct of romantic relationship was improperly operationalized? How was this construct defined to participants? Perhaps participants characterized friendly e-mails with romantic overtones as romantic relationships as opposed to what we would consider to be a traditional romantic relationship.
PaulResnick: I'm very skeptical of the explanation that newsgroups are more conducive to relationship formation than listservs. If anything, it should be the opposite. Newsgroups are at least as publicly accessible as listservs, and more easily findable.

The very factors that McKenna claims lead to increased disclosure--high levels of anonymity, few gates, and shared spaces of interest--also make it easy to remain anonymous. Granting that no one here knows I'm a dog, what incentive to I have to change the present perception of myself as "just another user"? The low threshold for participation means that I can remain anonymous; the shared interest space often means that who I am doesn't matter--although what I know may matter, and I may become known through that (or may remain anonymous); ultimately, though, if I can get what I want from a situation without revealing myself, why should I identify myself, much less disclose information that I don't have to? Yes, this might be another instance of my paranoia--however, it may also be an example of the gender differences McKenna cites. Or I may just be a jerk. Whatever the case, this week's discussion seems to presuppose that we want to establish "relationships" online. I must assert that this is simply not necessarily true. We may use the media to maintain relationships (or even to develop new ones, if so inclined). We may also, however, use it simply to interact with content. CaRichardson: And what about the features of the Internet that inhibit personal disclosure such as the fact that a) with few exceptions, the Internet is a public space, that anyone and everyone has access to, or b) it is highly searchable and can be used by employers, enemies, and friends alike to find out more about who you are.

JudeYew: Much has been said about the comparison of this article to Cummings et al's study of online relationships. However, I would like to pay more careful attention to some of the other studies which McKenna et al raise in the paper.
The article also refutes a study conducted by Nie and Ebring's (2000) findings that Internet use causes people to spend less time with family & friends. McKenna et al criticize Nie & Ebring for basing their conclusions on only 4.3% of the total sample (see p. 29). In December 2004 a follow-up study was published by Nie et al (view report here∞) found that an hour of time spent using the Internet reduces face-to-face contact with friends, co-workers and family by 23.5 minutes, lowers the amount of time spent watching television by 10 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes. Here, Nie et al (2004) puts forward the idea that time spent on the internet is time taken away from other activities. This study relates to McKenna et al's article in that they claim the internet as a viable means of maintaining ties with exisitng family and friends as well as forming new relationships (p. 30) However, Nie et al (2004) found that although the Internet is widely employed for communications, users spend little of their online time in contact with family members. Of the time devoted to communication, just a sixth was spent staying in touch with family members, significantly less than the time spent on work-related communications and contact with friends.

NoorAliHasan: I had a couple of questions. First, on page 15, they describe their selection criteria. Did they only send the survey to the 5th poster to ensure that they had a random sample? Second, on page 29, is their usage of introversion and extroversion correct? I always thought that those terms were more related to where one receives their energy from (from themselves or other people) and not really an indication of shyness.

JudeYew: Hey Noor, about the survey methodology, you are on the money there. I think the point of them sending the survey out to every 5th person was randomization. With regards to the words introversion and extroversion, I think they were pretty accurate in their use of them. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary;
- Introversion:
1 : the act of introverting : the state of being introverted
2 : the state or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life
- Extroversion:
The act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self