Staying connected while physically apart: Digital communication when face-to-face interactions are limited

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical work on digital media use and social connectedness has often considered face-to-face communication to be an available option. But how do various digital media uses relate to social connectedness when face-to-face communication is not, or much less, possible? Drawing on survey data from 2925 US adults during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that different digital communication methods display different relationships with social connectedness under stay-at-home circumstances with limited in-person interactions outside the home. Overall, digital communication relates to lower social connectedness. In line with notions from social presence theory, especially digital media lower in social presence (e.g. email, social media, and online games, and to some extent text messaging) relate negatively to social connectedness, while this is not the case for higher social presence media (e.g. voice and video calls). Our study has implications for theorizing about digital media use and social connectedness in times when face-to-face communication is less available.

You are not alone: Smartphone use, friendship satisfaction, and anxiety during the COVID-19 crisis

“…Our findings showed a positive impact of communicative smartphone use on friendship satisfaction, which is in line with research conducted prior to the pandemic (Chan & Li, 2020). While well-established empirical results regarding social connection, online self-disclosure, and relationship maintenance in the context of online communication (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009) and smartphone use (Chan, 2015) during regular times demonstrated positive effects of communicative use, our results extend them to the specific crisis-related context in which face-to-face communication had to be replaced almost completely with online communication (Nguyen et al, 2021). Being able to talk and exchange information about COVID-19 with one's social networks enhanced feelings of friendship satisfaction and strengthened the relationships after one month.…”

“…Using a two-wave panel survey conducted during the first lockdown in Austria, we shed light on the interplay between different types of smartphone use, friendship satisfaction, and anxiety. Findings from previous research on the impact of digital media in the pandemic context are limited due to a predominance of correlational design (e.g., Liu, 2020;Nguyen et al, 2021). To account for directionality, we relied on a panel design that allows for investigation into reciprocal relationships as well as antecedents of communicative and non-communicative smartphone use, both of which have been neglected in past studies (Chan & Li, 2020).…”

Piercing the Pandemic Social Bubble: Disability and Social Media Use About COVID-19

“…Social media increasingly play a central role in interactions online and have been shown to have played an important role during the COVID-19 pandemic in particular (Nguyen et al,2021). However, using social media to one's benefit requires that such platforms be accessible for people of different backgrounds-including PWD -and there is a history of accessibility problems in social media.…”

Social microclimates and well-being

“…The COVID pandemic also drastically altered the nature of students' social relationships, primarily by shifting from in-person communication to digital platforms 29,31,32 . We assess changes in the well-being of our sample, and relate information about existing social relationships to mental health during the pandemic.…”

“…Although digital communication increased during the pandemic, prior work suggests that asynchronous communication, like text messaging, decreases feelings of social connectedness 32 .…”