The Real Difference

The first impression I make in a traditional format class is explained well by Erving Goffman in his article “The Presentation of Self”. He explains how people have “carriers” this is how someone looks and how the act. This gives a lot of information to a person whether this information is true or not remains to be seen .(42,43) For me personally I’m rather quiet and have a hard time talking to strangers and I know there are others like that too so most of the information people get from me in traditional format classes is from my carriers. Also in classes really the most important thing is listing to the instructor it’s hard to find time to really get to know someone unless you sit near them the entire semester. In a class like our English class you get to see what other people tell you about themselves in writing and there are less carriers to go from because it’s really only pictures that a another student can see. Also I had the opportunity to really take time and go through what I did want to let others know about me and what I didn’t want others to know about me, as I think most people would because they want to give off the best impression possible.
Even though there’s is no physical interaction between students who are in online classes, impressions are still made either way. I think the impression someone gets from in a traditional format class is more accurate though as there really is no chance for some to come off exactly as they want to unlike online classes where you have the ability to edit what you are going to show others thoroughly before you allow them to see what your wrote and form an opinion about you. Goffman backs this up when he declares that the “real attitudes, beliefs and attitudes “ are shown when someone gives off “avowels” . This is what someone gives off that isn’t thought out and they probably didn’t even realize that there giving this off. (43) I think these signs are important as you can you really tell if a certain person is someone who you would want to interact with. There are plenty of people who like the same things as you and have similar stories, but this does not automatically mean there will be a real connection and that is really the only thing you have to go off when you first look at someone else’s blog.
I don’t think that you can truly know someone without meeting them is person. Although I do think that the interaction that people have over the internet allows them to be more than strangers. Charles Horton Cooley in his article “Primary Groups” wrote a quote I really like “one lives in the feeling of the whole and finds the chief aims of his will in that feeling.” (38) In this quote the whole is referring to a primary group which is a group where people meet in person. (38) I think referring to it as the whole puts it in good perspective. When it comes to online interaction there could be any range of how much you know someone or don’t know them, but I don’t believe you will ever have the entire picture of who someone his without meeting them in person. I think this can be seen when you meet someone online whether it be our blog, Facebook or any other social networking tool and then meet them in person, I’ve had experiences where after meeting someone online first and then meeting them in person they turn out to be a lot different than I thought they would be and I’m confident other people have had similar experiences.