Virtual relationships: gating , hyperpersonal

• virtual relationships in social media


  It is becoming more and more common to have relationships by communicating over social media. Psychologists are interested as to why online relationships seem to disclose more and develop intimacy sooner than in real life
• absence of gating mechanisms 


  Communicating through the internet removes a number of factors that normally act as filters or barriers, stopping interactions in face to face encounters. Barriers such as level of physical attractiveness, speech defects, age group, and being from a different ethnic or social background are less prominent when you are communicating indirectly
• Reduced Cue theory


  This is that computers lack some features of face-to-face communication such as non-verbal communication via facial expressions.

  This may result in people reading too much into typed communication
• anonymity 


  Deindividuation results in a reduction in feelings of responsibility, leading to loss of inhibition due to a lessened sense of personal responsibility. Individuals can say things online that they never would in real life. This lack of normal distancing behaviours as usually regulated in face to face contact may lead to closeness and intimacy but trolling
• hyperpersonal model


  people can manipulate their online identity and significantly control interactions to display a hyper honest (self-disclosing) or hyper dishonest version of themselves (creating more attractive version of themselves)
• Zhao (2008)


  found that Facebook users often present highly edited, fictional representations of their true identity, presenting a false version of their ‘ideal’ self who they consider more likely to be attractive to others

  Supporting the hyperpersonal model - hyperdishonest
• Walther and Tidwell (1995)

  The theories of self-disclosure and absence of gating in virtual relationships may lack ecological validity because they may not be able to explain all the course of modern-age relationships, which is often a mixture of virtual and face-to-face elements

  Individuals often feel the pressure to portray themselves in the same way as they have online as in real-life, and so this interaction may offset the effects of fewer gates and self-disclosure in virtual relationships.
• Baker (2010)

  •  found that online relationships allowed shy people to overcome the lack of confidence that normally prevented them forming face-to-face relationships. A survey of 207 male and female students found that high shyness and use of Facebook scores correlated with higher perception of friend quality. Low shyness and high Facebook use was not correlated with friendship quality. This seems to indicate that shy people may find virtual relationships particularly rewarding, presumably as the negative emotions brought about by face-to-face relationships are lessened or removed.