The Reflection Of Computer Mediated Communication With Different Students In Class

On the first day of class when I found out that we were going to be “forced” to communicate with different students in class, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. After looking back at last semester and how some of my best friends up here were made was through some of my classes. This realization is what led me to having an open mind about this assignment. Computer mediated communication is definitely an interesting concept because you never know who is on the other side of the device. For me, it turned out that the person on the other side was someone who lived on the same floor as I did and I didn’t know. That person was Sherelle Smith. When any kind of relationship develops, there is a certain amount of uncertainty about the person you are …show more content…
This conversation was a basic intro. We exchanged what our friends called us and how we can go about communicating. Taking the first step helped reduce the amount od uncertainty as to who was going to break and send the first message. Once we established a basic understanding of each other and established how we were going to communicate (text messaging), everything fell into place. From this moment on we texted each other on four other different occasions. Each time we tried to reduce whatever uncertainty was still there. We established that we were both freshmen, live close by in New York City, and found out that we live on the same floor in our dorm. Discovering these different aspects about each other helped reduce whatever uncertainty there was between …show more content…
I’ll be honest, I’m a horrible person to talk to over computer mediated communication. Not because I will take forever to reply, but because I rely on the other person to help carry a conversation. If a person is busy, its hard to carry out a conversation with them. This might have been the case with Sherelle. It seemed as if every time I contacted her one of us was either preoccupied or busy. This didn’t really help when it came to opening up and sharing a little about us to each other. Once we were together talking in the face to face encounter, Social Penetration was easier. I feel like after that encounter, we knew each other on a completely different level. We talked for about 45 minutes to an hour and shared certain aspects of our lives. None of this was awkward at all. Being able to communicate over text before meeting each other had a huge impact on that and allowed for Social Penetration theory to work