Social Interaction Across Digital Communication Platforms

• In Event: 4467 - Section on Social Psychology Refereed Roundtables (Cosponsored with Section on Sociology of Emotions)
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 2: Social Support and Injustice

Abstract

An increasing amount of social interaction between individuals is facilitated by social technologies. In fact, 95% of Americans own a cellphone of some type, 77% of which are smartphones that have the capacity for text messaging and video calling (Pew Research Center 2018). The growth in digitally mediated communication platforms may have ramifications for how individuals form relationships. At issue is how these technologies may affect social bonds between interaction partners, as the access to perceptual social cues are reduced compared to face-to-face interaction. This research studies the role of social psychological mechanisms such as identity verification, uncertainty, trust, liking, and role-taking, while moving analysis from traditional face-to-face interactions to digitally mediated interactions. To address how technology facilitates or impedes emergent social processes during interaction, an experiment will be conducted that tests the effects of the communication platforms of video calling and text messaging at a time when people are increasingly adopting it over face-to-face communication. These two platforms are at somewhat extreme ends of a continuum where individuals can see and hear the other (video calling) to neither seeing nor hearing the other (text messaging). Video calling provides visual and auditory cues that text messaging does not, and these cues may help in the development of social bonds. As people converse more with digital communication, at issue is how these platforms may affect the formation of social relationships. The decrease in relevant perceptual cues when digitally interacting may be associated with how much individuals obtain identity verification, which may, in turn, be associated with the likelihood of social bonds forming. Given this growth in usage, and growing concerns over technology’s role in social relationships and human communication, this study illuminates a broader societal concern: Does technology help or harm our relationships with others?

Author

• Phoenicia Nicole Fares, University of California, Riverside