The article Quality of Online Social Relationships
was very thought provoking and interesting. It also confirmed what I thought to
be true in that face-to-face interaction is generally more effective in
creating and maintaining a social relationship. The experiment amongst college
students in the article show that while most often in work and social settings,
face-to-face and phone communication is most useful, in terms of exchanging
information, e-mail is more efficient. This made sense to me because often I
use e-mail for short questions and exchanging information in order to arrange a
face-to-face meeting. However, in sustaining or creating a relationship, I have
never found e-mail to be much use at all.
When the article discusses the statistics on Internet social
groups it was interesting to see the overall ineffectiveness of Listservs to
create and maintain a social setting with high interaction and little turnover.
The data in the article shows that Listservs are most effective with a small
number of people ranging from 3 to 15. However when the group becomes larger,
the turnover of the group rises and interaction and responses to e-mails within
the group plummets. I have been in these types of social groups before and I
never felt a sense of identity from the group or responded to the emails.
In conclusion I was not surprised to learn that
relationships started and maintained over the Internet are not as effective as
other means of communications. This article made me think what the results
would look like if similar experiments were conducted with social media sites
such as Facebook and twitter, in place of e-mail. I have a feeling results
would be much different because of the ability to chat instantly and post
pictures of yourself on these social media sites. What do you think?
Hi AG,
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct. I also think you are spot on as regards the Facebook and other social media options.
What I find interesting is your comments on email. From a work perspective, I totally agree with you; of late, I have a colleague who seems to prefer to make as much contact as possible through email. It annoys me because I feel inundated with email already. I have not told him this, but I try to lead by example; when he emails, I call him and answer his questions. I'm also trying to point out how much more we get done when we actually speak as opposed to an email barrage. I'm not sure he's cottoned on as yet.
Email for personal relationships on the other hand, I think used to be effective. It's a bit like the really old days when people would actually use a pen and *write* letters with ink on paper to a lover, a parent, or a friend, stuff it in an envelope and pop a stamp on it for someone to carry to the far corners of the globe by hand. The relationship could take it's natural course. I had seen that before in email. I infer something has changed in that with the bandwidth ability most of us have now it's actually almost easier to use FaceTime or Skype to connect with someone by voice or by video.
All in all, great post - you made me think about this a bit more broadly than I had already in a different comment to another classmate (Jinxx21).
Cheers!
Daniel.
Hi AG- nice to meet you. I think of the word "Quality" as subject to the person who is considering it. If we are talking about on line relationships, and having quality on line relationships, or comparing quality of on line relationships to in the flesh relationships, it's still all subject to the thoughts and feelings of the person you are discussing it with. In Chato's example he was saying someone communicates too much by email. To the other guy/ or gal - it might be of high quality and desirability if Chato is responsive ( albeit annoyed). When Chato becomes annoyed at the colleague at some point in the experience, it is no longer a quality relationship for Chato. Thus, to me it matters not if it's on line compared to in the flesh. It matters and becomes quality if it's as comfortable for me as it is for them. I want Chato to have a quality on line relationship with me in the class ( as I do the rest of you) so I ask Chato for a pardon in using his post in my example. Something that is of quality to me brings forth fruits of pleasure, that I feel I can share with others. If it's bad fruit I wont eat it or share it with others ( as in: I won't recommend a blog or website unless I think it might be good ( of quality) to someone else). This can also become a commentary on the debate between quality between social networks, facebook to me is not necessarily of higher quality than twitter. But, I use it more often.
ReplyDeleteAG,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that I think Facebook would definitely be a much easier way to help retain a relationship. Like you said, Facebook gives you the opportunity to instant chat with your friends who are online. You also can post pictures and you are allowed to comment on them. I also agree with you that face-to-face interaction is always the better way to go when choosing to create a new relationship. Emailing people back in forth can get complicated. Its’ easier to use email when with specific information, that way they can have it and print it out if they need it.