capstone: draft

The social penetration theory and the social information processing theory can enlighten and clarify the communication that takes place or has taken place between William and I as our friendship has developed over the internet. I have always been skeptical of making online friends and even with the numbers of internet friendships increasing in the age of information, I never felt left out. Nevertheless, I am part of this growing trend among young people. I met William, on a non-Christian forum. A high school friend literally forced me to join the website and so I was relatively new to it. While browsing the forums on the site, I was looking for Christians and people with similar music tastes. Then I saw a post by a website member talking about the Christian band, Showbread, one of my favourite bands at the time and I decided to message him. I never knew that a strong friendship was going to form with one click of the “send” button on a lame website.

By using the social penetration theory, I can explain the formation of my friendship with William, 19, from Arkansas. At first, our friendship started with the exchange of our favourite songs by the band Showbread. The onion model of the social penetration theory can give details about the development of our friendship. We started out by sharing little, superficial things about ourselves. We shared similar music and movie tastes. The breadth of our relationship was wide even at the beginning; we always had much to talk about. Eventually, our level of communication went deeper. We started to talk more about religion, hopes, dreams, values and ourselves. Sometimes we even talked about our love for God. The more we talked, the more we shared about ourselves. “Disclosures are often risky” (Trenholm & Jenson, 2000), and a lot of the time there are great risks involved in self-disclosing information. “Once you disclose something to someone, that person can now share the information with others…” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002); therefore, it takes a lot of courage to trust someone at that level. When I was a victim of bullying in high school, I would come home and talk to William. I looked forward to it as well. It was easy to trust him because he did not live near me and he did not know my friends. The risks were minimal in sharing with him and it was easy for me to open up and talk to him about my social issues at school. I trusted him and saw him as a safe person.

Generally, “when people share information about themselves, they expect the other person to share similar information her- or himself” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002) and this rule was maintained throughout our friendship. I was not going to put any time into an online friendship if this other person was not going to reciprocate and find information about me. A “line of communication…is one of the best ways to preserve the relationship” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002) and as long as we had things to talk about (breadth), that line would remain open. Both of these factors nurtured our friendship and gave it time to grow. Now, we have no problem talking to each other about life and we often pray for each other, talk about God, and offer encouragement. There was a lot of risk involved in getting to that place of friendship. I was willing to share information about myself with someone I had never seen before. However, what made it safe for me was that “…another aspect about Internet relationships is that a person can simply disappear…” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002). That certainty ensured my way out of the online “friendship” if I needed it. Being doubtful, I assumed that this online friendsip would not last. However, because of the depth and breadth that our friendship was able to form, I consider William to be one of my best friends to this day.

The social information processing theory analysis of the development of my online friendship with William can explain the foundation of our friendship quite clearly. My face-to-face friendships have always developed at a slow pace, with many hesitations. However, my friendship with William formed through computer-mediated communication, or CMC. We only instant messaged each other after school and I would look forward to talking to him. The anticipated future interaction explains that the “likelihood of future interaction motivates CMC users to develop a relationship” (Griffin, 2009 p 143). Due to a time delay in responses, “…there is less information to process” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002). Typing allowed me to premeditate on how I was going to respond and how much information I was going to disclose. This gave a sense of stability and routine to our friendship and it helped our relationship form at a steady pace, rather than too fast or too slow. Personally, I do not think that we would have the same friendship that we have today if we had met face-to-face in the first place.

When sharing information I definitely used selective self-presentation (Griffin, 2009 p. 144-45 ) to create a positive aura of myself At first I would only tell William my likes and dislikes in music. I held back information and presented that which was favourable and gave me a likeable impression. Selective self-presentation gives people a chance to “…write about their most attractive traits, accomplishments, thoughts, and actions without fear of contradiction from their physical appearance, their inconsistent actions, or the objection of third parties who know their dark side” (Griffin, 2009 p 144). In a sense, I realized this and I knew that I could not be judged based on my looks, my vices or bad habits, or even my negative feelings. I created a likeable, friendly, and interesting persona; I was an individual making a friend with her best foot forward. This was helpful in maintaining and developing my friendship because “self-disclosing inappropriate information or self-disclosing at the wrong time can inhibit relationship development” (Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Sudweeks, & Stewart, 1995). Of course, as time went on, we shared the negative aspects and happenings in our lives as well in attempt to help each other out in whatever situation with which we were struggling.

An idea called hyperpersonal perspective (Griffin, 2009 p. 144 ) also played a role in the construction of my ever-advancing friendship. For the longest time, I did not know what William looked like and he did not know what I looked like. Moreover, neither of us asked the other about it. The hyperpersonal perspective rests on the fact that the visual representation of each person is absent and, therefore, the perspective relies heavily on self-disclosed information. The interpersonal interaction between online friends can be amplified if only the participants “…resist the temptation or pressure to exchange photographs with each other” (Griffin, 2009 p. 145). It was not until a few months into our friendship when we exchanged pictures. By then, our friendship was very strong. I have not met my friend face-to-face yet; however, there is pressure to keep up with my persona even though he knows more of my real, imperfect self. This pressure also transfers into my face-to-face relationships and acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Often, people do not understand my friendship with William. However, since research has shown that “…online relationships vary considerably, much like other relationships” (Wallace, 1999), I consider my friendship to be lasting and genuine. Because “…CMC allows you to meet two interpersonal goals: to make contact with strangers and thus initiate and develop new relationships; and to maintain existing ones” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002). Sometimes; however, I thought our friendship was too perfect far too soon. Early on, I was over attributing similarities between us. These similarities (or over assumption of similarities), however, only created a sense of connectedness and belonging for both of us. Thus, my friendship is built on the fact that we have both shared information (similarities and differences alike) with each other in a nonthreatening and stress free environment.

According to the social information processing theory, my friendship with William grew from pieces of information that he had chosen to share with me. By doing so, he helped me form an opinion of him. As a rule unique to CMC, “the kind of information you provide and acquire through CMC has a direct impact on impression formation and relational attraction” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002). The sip versus gulp analogy is true in my friendship with William. I was able to take little pieces from his life and dwell on each piece, rather than having to process body language, eye contact, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. which face-to-face friendships encounter. My friendship has “the same quantity and quality of interpersonal knowledge, but it accumulate[d] at a slower rate” (Griffin, 2009 p. 140). It has taken many years for our friendship to build up to what it is now. In comparison with other face-to-face relationships, this friendship, in particular, took me much longer to establish us as more than mere acquaintances, but rather as friends.

The resourceful and descriptive theories of social penetration and social information processing, help explain the communication that has occurred during the development and establishment of my friendship with my friend William. The social penetration theory described the interpersonal communication that was taking place through computer-mediated communication. We were able to share deeper ideas and events in our life as well as our own struggles as young Christians in a large world. The social information processing theory, along with computer-mediated communication, accounts for the reasons behind the ease of becoming instant messaging friends. The issue of time and the lack of physical presence, contributed to the building up of our friendship rather than hindering it. I was cynical then and I am still cynical about making friends with strangers online. I never go on the website anymore, I do not regret logging on that one day and making a lifelong friendship with an irreplaceable individual.


Works Cited
Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2002). Interpersonal Communication:
Relating to Others. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look at Communication Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill
Higher Education.
Gudykunst, W. B., Ting-Toomey, S., Sudweeks, S., & Stewart, L. P. (1995). Building
Bridges: Interpersonal Skills for a Changing World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Trenholm, S., & Jenson, A. (2000). Interpersonal Communication. California:
Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Wallace, P. (1999). The Psychology of the Internet. New York: Cambridge University
Press.