One of the outcomes of my recent research has been my belief that online groups can tell us a lot about face-to-face (FtF) groups that we either have not noticed or have interpreted through different lenses–theoretical lenses that can change once we see the behavior in online groups and interpret in a particular way and the realize that the same behavior occurs in FtF groups but we’ve never really thought about it “that way”.<\/p>\n
Case in point: \u00a0Public versus private interactions. \u00a0Online, people will reveal information that is quite personal or intimate, which we could consider “private” but is available for everyone to see–on a newsgroup, on a listserv, even \u00a0on a Facebook status update. \u00a0Do they confuse their public\/private boundaries or locations?<\/p>\n
I have spent a great deal of time working at coffeehouses during my sabbatical. \u00a0I find them fantastic ways to keep myself focused on my work while still stimulated enough to not get distracted (another topic for another blog). \u00a0In the past few weeks, with the remodel of my favorite coffeehouse, I have changed where I have been sitting. \u00a0In this new location, I notice that every weekday morning when I am here, there is a group that meets and discusses “issues” for about an hour or so before they go to work or back to their home. \u00a0There are a couple of interesting things about this group: \u00a0it seems to either be a support group for a middle aged woman (the youngest member of the group) or she simply dominates the entire conversation with issues about her co-workers, church or health problems. \u00a0Should I be the gossiping type and If I took notes, I could tell you where she works, what she does, her plans for leaving her Sunday school responsibilities and what medical practice she frequents for one of her ongoing medical issues.<\/p>\n
That is actually not what interests me. \u00a0What interests me is that this group is clearly having a private conversation in a public location–one that the rest of us at the coffeehouse know is a public location but which this particular group is \u00a0enacting what I could consider private behaviors. Many people have meetings at this location and most of them are able to hold their conversations at a level that is quiet enough to still be “private” in public.<\/p>\n
I think previously we would just interpret this as being an issue with someone who speaks too loudly for the location (and if *I* am calling someone loud…). \u00a0However, I wonder if the more interesting issue is the permeability of psychological boundaries that people create around their FtF groups. \u00a0It is obvious in online groups how permeable \u00a0these boundaries are, especially when researchers or media expose their contents. \u00a0Some online groups make the boundaries less permeable by requiring membership and not allowing the content to show up on google searches. \u00a0But they are still completely permeable due to our options to cut and paste content. \u00a0For the most part though, however, we let people enact their online public behavior as private.<\/p>\n
Just like people are “letting” the groups in this coffeehouse believe they are private and just like the people interacting in these groups believe they are private, when in fact, I could be transcribing everything they are saying. \u00a0Of course, I \u00a0would be gossiping and eavesdropping should I be doing in to the FtF groups, while just “reading” should I be doing it in an online group.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, however, we all create psychological boundaries of privacy in public spaces, boundaries that are highly permeable in both FtF and online environments. Of course, online, the communication is permanent, but FtF it’s no less observable and it’s not less private.<\/p>\n
Same behavior, different explanations. \u00a0The issue of Public vs. Private conversations are not isolated to online groups. \u00a0Perhaps we (or I?) just haven’t thought about it the same way in FtF groups.<\/p>\n
Semi-deep thoughts while I try to figure out what the heck the purpose of this group is and why they meet here every morning, which I admit is idle\u00a0curiosity\u00a0and not related at all to any research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the outcomes of my recent research has been my belief that online groups can tell us a lot about face-to-face (FtF) groups that we either have not noticed or have interpreted through different lenses–theoretical lenses that can change once we see the behavior in online groups and interpret in a particular way and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67nDP-2t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":264,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2014\/06\/20\/online-classes\/","url_meta":{"origin":153,"position":0},"title":"Online Classes","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"June 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I would love to start a discussion of online classes in this post (so I must remember to turn on comments). So, I just finished my second online class. \u00a0Despite being someone who studies online groups and who has been on email since ((gulp)) 1984, I have not wanted to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":434,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2020\/10\/23\/podcasts-during-zoom\/","url_meta":{"origin":153,"position":1},"title":"Podcasts During Zoom","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"October 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"My mentor, Dr. Lynne Markus, wrote a very important article (Culnan & Markus, 1987 and while that is not the direct link to it b\/c it's a handbook article, the article I do link to is a follow-up that is similar). ANYHOOOOO, the gist of Culnan & Markus is stop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/VICE-Lab-2020.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/VICE-Lab-2020.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/VICE-Lab-2020.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/VICE-Lab-2020.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/VICE-Lab-2020.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":405,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2020\/07\/13\/the-difficulty-of-social-distancing\/","url_meta":{"origin":153,"position":2},"title":"The Difficulty of Social Distancing","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"My research focuses on\u00a0entitativity: a person's cognitive assessment that they are in a group.\u00a0 The classic example compares a \"group\" of people waiting for a bus stop compared to the same group of people at a cafe sharing coffee and conversations (pre-COVID, of course). The cafe is \"groupier\" than the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/07\/Friends.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/07\/Friends.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/07\/Friends.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":61,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2003\/07\/01\/sense-of-virtual-community-in-listservs-and-newsgroups\/","url_meta":{"origin":153,"position":3},"title":"Sense of Virtual Community in Listservs and Newsgroups","author":"clas-web","date":"July 1, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr. Anita Blanchard UNC Charlotte Department of Psychology July 1, 2003 Introduction The term \u201cvirtual community\u201d can be used to describe any group of people who interact through computer communication (e.g., email, Usenet newsgroups).\u00a0 However, are they truly \u201ccommunities\u201d in the traditional meaning?\u00a0 One way to determine if virtual communities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Research Reports"","block_context":{"text":"Research Reports","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/research-reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":224,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2013\/03\/13\/telecommuting-creativity-and-connection\/","url_meta":{"origin":153,"position":4},"title":"Telecommuting, Creativity, and Connection","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"March 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I am coming to the Yahoo Telecommuting brouhaha a little later than most, but I think it's given me time to process others' reactions as well as better formulate my own. The gist of the story is that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has decided to eliminate her employees' ability to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":117,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2011\/07\/25\/academic-conferences\/","url_meta":{"origin":153,"position":5},"title":"Academic Conferences","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I just got back from INGroup11, an interdisciplinary conference for people who study groups. You can read the twitter commentary at #INGroup11. It was one of the best conferences I have ever attended. \u00a0I realize that by saying something like that (or even worse, the tweet confessing that I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}