Although the researcher had several hypotheses at the beginning of this study, most of these were not supported by the results. The data did not hold up the hypothesis that the respondents would express difficulty judging the context of those they speak with, nor did it support the idea that emoticons have improved the ease of assessing a person's meaning. Furthermore, the results did not support the expectation that CMC would cause "real-life" relationships to feel less emotional or that respondents would be inhibited in trusting those they met through CMC. However, the collected data does support the researcher's expectation that all participants converse with their friends and family over the computer regularly, and that the use of CMC increases the frequency with which they correspond overall.
One must keep in mind that the data presented here cannot necessarily be generalized to the entire population; the sample is small, as well as biased to a group of women from a single college. These factors alone may be enough to seriously limit the generalizability of results. Yet despite this fact, this study has uncovered many interesting facts about the formation and maintenance of online relationships. Its focus is very important to our computer-reliant society. The data found in this study would be a good base upon which to build ideas for further experiments. With replication of this study using a larger, more stratified population, the data may become more reliable and fit for generalization. A survey would be a very effective experimental technique, as it would allow the researcher freedom to collect more data, as well as analyze the results with less guesswork. Particularly, by running a more focused study, more productive results could be achieved. A less broad topic for future study could be the formation of trust in online relationships, or the relationship between trusting and trustworthiness through CMC. This interesting subject could have very fascinating results. |
