Chapter four reviews three perspectives focused on interpersonal relationships online, based on examples from social scientific scholarship. The chapter presents arguments that online experiences are inherently impersonal in nature and poor conduits for creating relationships. Yet it also considers evidence that supports the creation of meaningful interpersonal relationships using such explanations as the Social Identification/Deindividuation (SIDE) model. For some, it is added, the experience of relating to others may even be a "hyperpersonal" experience. The chapter also offers some advice for managing online relationships, especially for avoiding flaming in working relationships and considering the impact of cyberaffairs on significant others.

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Request that your students print-out a copy of their electronic mail address book. Direct them to use these addresses to create a chart where they can keep track of their interactions with these people over the next seven days. Students should note the kinds of interaction they have with each member of their address book, both mediated and face-to-face. They should count the number of e-mails, chat session, and instant messages as well as interactions by telephone, snail mail, and face-to-face encounters.

Sample Communication Log

Addressee	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thur.	Fri.	Sat.	Sun.

At the end of the week, ask students to review their communication log in terms of quantity and quality: How often do you use mediated channels to manage these relationships?

Are there relationships where you have more encounters through mediated channels than through face-to-face interactions? Are these mediated relationships any less meaningful to you than those managed primarily through face-to-face interaction? What qualities make them just as meaningful? If they are less meaningful to you, what's lacking in them?

Discuss the students' results in class or on the class listserv. Guide the students to make connections with the issues of the impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal perspectives discussed in the textbook.

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Download a PowerPoint slideshow for this chapter

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To request sample test questions, contact Matthew Smith at <msmith@wittenberg.edu>. [Instructors only. Proof of institutional affiliation will be required.] 

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Ephron, N. (Director). (1998). You've got mail [Film]. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers.

This Tom Hank and Meg Ryan vehicle, mentioned in the opening vignette of chapter two, tells the tale of how competing booksellers find true love as online pen pals. The same premise appeared in earlier film incarnations as Shop around the Corner (1940) and In the Good Old Summer Time (1949), but the 1998 remake underscores the fact that electronic mail has replaced old-fashioned snail mail as a medium for written communication and literary flirtation. 

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