Social Penetration Theory

For years I have taught my students about social penetration theory, which basically says that relationships become more intimate when you share information about yourself. There is a lot more to the theory, but that is the main gist of it. As self-disclosure goes up (from both people) intimacy goes up.

In a different course today I had my media students consider how blogging affects -- proves or disproves -- social penetration theory. Remember the theory doesn't say "hanging out together makes friends feel closer." It says, "Sharing about yourself makes friends feel closer."

So, I think blogging is evidence that social penetration theory is true. Blogging might also have all kinds of positive and negative impacts or society and relationships, but at least in this case it proves the theory correct.

My UVSC students pointed out that the sharing has to be felt on both sides. I write, you read, you comment. You write, I read, I comment. It seems that this is the only appropriate way to use blogging to strengthen relationships, according to my UVSC students. But of course you can use Blogs to share information, make money, learn something, or whatever, and that would be different.

We also pointed out that blogs can be used to create pseudo relationships, which are one sided relationships in which one person feels connected to another because they know a lot about them, while the other person does not know the first person. For example, If were to run into Jon Peter Lewis at the airport, I would want to talk to him about his life and his time on American Idol Season 3. I might even get a little star struck. I would be showing that I have a pseudo relationship with him while he has no relationship with me.

In the case of Jon Peter Lewis, I might send my cute daughter to break the ice outside of Gate 54A at LAX. He, he, he.

Anyway, I guess my students decided that the blogisphere can show us multiple examples of how the underlying concepts in the social penetration theory are correct. Do some research. It's interesting.