Social Interactions Across Media

Abstract

Two studies were conducted in this investigation to compare college students' interpersonal interaction online, face-to-face, and on the telephone. Our first study, a communication diary, assessed the relative amount of social interactions college students conduct via the internet in comparison to face-to-face conversation and telephone calls. Results indicated that the internet was used nearly as often as the telephone, however, face-to-face communication was far more frequent. The second study, a survey, compared reported use of the internet within local and long distance social circles to the use of other media within those circles, and examined participants' most recent significant social interactions conducted online, face-to-face, and on the telephone in terms of purposes, contexts, and quality. Major findings included that online interaction was perceived as high in quality, but slightly lower than telephone calls and face-to-face conversations. Use of the internet was positively correlated with the use of other modes of interpersonal communication. Together, results show that the internet is integrated into social life, but face-to-face remains the dominant mode of interpersonal communication.

Motives influencing Facebook usage as a social networking site: An empirical study using international students

“…These results corroborate an observation made by Rahman (2014) who noted that international students, being far away from home, need to constantly communicate with their friends and families around the world. Even though Baym et al (2004) discovered that students prefer to communicate faceto-face, findings of this research concur with those of Chen and Hanasono (2016) who established that distance and cost barriers in international communications necessitate the utilisation of SNSs like Facebook as these are cheap and more convenient to the students than the traditional means of communication such as voice calls. These results were similar to those of a previous study conducted on a sample of 142 Chinese international students in Japan which indicated that the need to stay connected positively influences Facebook usage (Chang et al 2014).…”

“…Although Baym, Zhang and Lin (2004) discovered that students prefer to communicate face-to-face, available literature indicates that SNSs have become an alternative in the absence of face-to-face interactions. Manasijevic et al (2016) underscored the role played by SNSs in allowing users to maintain connections with former classmates, workmates, social contacts and families whom they will be living away from.…”

Spatial and Social Networks in Organizational Innovation

“…They conclude that e-mail and telephone communication can link workers who are spatially isolated but only under conditions where management tasks require such communication. In two recent studies, Baym, Zhang, and Lin (2004) found that the more college students use e-mail to support social relationships, the more they use telephone and face-to-face communication to support these same social relationships. Kossinets and Watts (2006) are encouraged by these and other studies they cite to use only e-mail communication to infer underlying social networks.…”

What is a social tie?

“…However, the availability of digital communication datasets mitigates these initial problems. Because social networks are not static structures, the time resolution of such datasets allows an insight into the evolution and dynamics of social structures, prompting social theories about contacts, community, and consumption to be reexamined (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). For example, an analysis of e-mail logs from a major educational institution showed patterns of social ties as a function of existing social structure, shared activities, and personal attributes (6).…”