2). Respond to the article, Quality of Online Social Relationships. Please highlight 2 or 3 main ideas from the article and discuss them. While discussing the main ideas, try to relate one or two of these ideas back to personal experience.
In Cummings et al. article, “The Quality of Online Social Relationships,” researchers examined the quality of offline, as well as online social interaction & relationships. In the 1st study presented by the researchers, bankers were asked to evaluate the value of certain communication sessions. The findings from this study showed that bankers believed that communication by email was less useful for creating/maintaining working relationships than face-to-face contact and phone conversations.
Based on personal experience, I did not find the findings from this study to be all that surprising. While using emails for work related matters are convenient, when it comes to service economies (e.g. banks, hair salons, etc), I believe personal interactions are extremely crucial and it’s often impossible to create and maintain personal, intimate interactions via email. I mean, if I had $70,000 in the bank and I had important questions regarding the money, I definitely wouldn’t email some random person at the bank! Plus, chances are that I would receive a faster answer by going to the bank and speaking with a representative myself versus sending an email (and waiting hours or even days for a response) or calling the bank (and being put on hold and transferred a billion times)!
Another main idea from the article is that the “frequency of communication predicted psychological closeness for offline relationships, but not for online ones” (Cummings et al. 2000, pg 12). I didn’t find this to be shocking either since I usually only email people I do not really want to see in person or talk to on the phone hahaha :p
I feel for the most part, when I'm at work, I'm just fine with emailing communications in order to get things done, but when it comes to my personal interactions and my personal business, I tend to prefer either a f2f or even hearing a person's voice on the phone. I thought you had a great example regarding $70,000 and emailing a random person at the bank vs connecting with someone in person. I agree one hundred percent. It makes me wonder though, as the use of the internet evolves, will there come a day where people feel differently? Where you and I feel differently?
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