Flying kisses.

“ I miss you, uhh, umm, (cyber) love..
- flying kisses :'( ”

I used to laugh at the thought of my friend crying over his boyfriend. She had chinky eyes so I thought it was just making her eyesight worse! It would have been acceptable, I thought, if he was what I call “real” boyfriend. “So he’s crying over a pseudo-boyfriend,” you may think. Luckily, that’s not what the guy was. Me and my other girl friends felt like heroines trying to save the world as we told her to stop crying over a stupid reason. For Pete’s sake, they haven’t even sniffed each other! It was kind of a Hollywood love story startin to happen. There’s no sense crying over him. In fact, it’s kinda pathetic. “Where I come from, we say, ‘cut the crap!’” We didn’t understand. And so we hurt her feelings.

The variety of theories mentioned in Griffin’s book, regarding the Social Information Processing Theory, that explain how computer-mediated communication (CMC) is different with face-to-face communication where also the things we told our friend.

We didn’t think you could possibly feel you are actually talking to someone when they are not physically present. The social presence theory pointed this out. CMC is “impersonal, individualistic, and task-oriented”.

Another issue is that you can’t see any nonverbal cues that would help you discern what message is supposed to be conveyed in the communication. Media Richness theory states that face-to-face communication can handle both verbal and nonverbal cues while CMC is rather limited.

The lack of social context cues is also another thing that is concentrated in comparing the two communication media. In CMC “people tend to become more self-absorbed and less inhibited”. It would result to more verbal attacks or sharp criticizations between the people communicating.


Joseph Walther, the author of the theory, believes that CMC provides no less different effects on both parties than face-to-face communication. He refers to it as “a sip instead of a gulp” referring to the fact that the same quantity and quality of interpersonal knowledge is achieved. But, is accumulated at a slower rate. Their “human need for affiliation is just as active as when they are with each other face-to-face”. It is just that in CMC, we would have to rely on text-only messages and still manage to convey the same information we want to. It was stressed that nonverbal cues can be interchanged with verbal cues.

Time. The level of intimacy that can be achieved in face-to-face communication can also be achieved in CMC. It is not about the amount of information but the rate it is accumulated. Obviously, we cannot type the words we want to say as fast as we can say it. In fact, as I am typing this, I speak the words too. And it requires me to either talk ridiculously slow or type superman-fast just to catch up.

My friend was scheduled to go to Manila for vacation the next summer. And so, it became another factor to add boost to their communication. They were looking forward to seeing each other. Anticipated future interaction, as part of Walther’s conception of Social Information Processing theory, is said to be “a way of extending psychological time”. It motivates both parties to get to know each other on a personal level. This better predicts how relationship is developed in both face-to-face communication and in CMC.

CMC relationships can get more intimate than relationships of partners that are together physically. Walther coined the term hyperpersonal to refer to this kind of relationship. This results from the four media effects that take place because the persons don’t are not communicating face-to-face.

When people meet online, they have a great opportunity to present and exaggerate their qualities to give a positive impression. This is called selective self-presentation. Some receivers though, may over-attribute the small information the sender has given to idealize the image of the sender. This occurs especially when similarities are mentioned. The channel of communication give partners the opportunity to communicate in their own time. Through this, time constraints are relaxed.



Back then, nobody could understand how my friend feels. After 2 years, I found my self on the same ground. Ironic.






Note: char.