Virtual Relationships in Social Media

• Virtual Relationships


  Non-physical interactions between people communicating via social media
• Face-to-face (FtF) relationships


  Relationships which take place in the 'real world'
• Reduced Cues Theory


  1. Less self-disclosure online than in face-to-face communication

  2. Harder to understand how engaged a person is online

  3. In CMC (computer-mediated communication) relationships, there are no cues (cannot see facial expressions, hear tone of voice, or determine emotional state)

  4. Leads people to see their online acquaintance/friend/partner as being 'less human' than themselves

  5. You are unlikely to disclose personal information about yourself to someone who is seen as 'less human'
• Hyperpersonal Model


  • CMC relationships can be more personal and involve greater disclosure than real Face-to-Face relationships
  • Virtual relationships may feel more intimate because there is less fear of rejection
  • People are less fearful of getting negative feedback in response to self-disclosure
  • You are more confident that your inner thoughts and feelings will remain private - the person you are speaking to online is not embedded in your inner circle of friends
• Absence of Gating on Virtual Relationships
• Gate


  An obstacle which prevents a relationship from starting due to lack of opportunity for self-disclosure
• In face-to-face relationships, various factors influence the likelihood of a relationship starting in the first place (e.g. geographic location, social class, ethnicity, attractiveness)</b>
• These 'gates' are not present in virtual relationships and, in fact, people may mislead others online to form a false impression of their true identity
• Reduced Cues Theory


  • The less social cues there are, the less self-disclosure there will be
• The reduced cues theory proposes that the less social cues there are


  The less self-disclosure there will be
• The reduced cues theory is not the case for all individuals
• People high in social anxiety

  • Engaged in greater self-disclosure in virtual relationships
• This shows that the theory is not applicable to all online relationships
• Tidwell and Walther (1995) reject the idea that there are no cues in online communication
• Cues in virtual relationships


  • Time taken to respond to a message
  • Use of emojis
• Cues in online interactions

  Not absent, just different
• People can use these cues to work out how interested the other person is in the conversation and what emotional state the other person is in