What Are Meaningful Social Interactions in Today’s Media Landscape? A Cross-Cultural Survey

Abstract

As we increasingly integrate technology into our lives, we need a better framework for understanding social interactions across the communication landscape. Utilizing survey data in which more than 4,600 people across the United States, India, and Japan described a recent social interaction, this article qualitatively and quantitatively explores what makes an interaction meaningful. A qualitative analysis of respondents’ own words finds that meaningful interactions are those with emotional, informational, or tangible impact that people believe enhance their lives, the lives of their interaction partners, or their personal relationships. A quantitative analysis predicting respondents’ ratings of recent interactions finds the attributes most likely to facilitate meaningfulness include strong ties (e.g., friends and family), community ties (e.g., neighbors), shared activities, and synchronicity; meaningful social interactions are also more likely to be planned in advance and memorialized with photos or videos. These attributes are consistent across cultures. Although popular rhetoric often juxtaposes people’s online lives against their offline lives, this research finds in-person interactions can be just as meaningful as technology-mediated interactions. We conclude with a new framework for thinking about social interactions more holistically.

Having versus not having social interactions in patients diagnosed with depression or social phobia and controls

“…We also discussed concepts such as meaningfulness with participants before they started into the ESM data collection week. Consistent with the subjective nature of this concept [ 11 ], we emphasized that it was up to them to decide what was meaningful, and that a predetermined length or interaction partner was not necessary. To further clarify this to the participants and to gather more information on what they perceived to be meaningful, each participant articulated several situations they considered to be meaningful social interactions.…”

“…A stronger focus on what reinforces or encourages patients to engage in meaningful social interactions, as opposed to avoiding them, might putatively lead to a richer and more fulfilling life. This might possibly happen because meaningful social interactions tend to have emotional, informational, or tangible impact on one’s life [ 11 ]. On the other hand, it also contributes to theoretical knowledge: Investigating how meaningful social interactions and a lack thereof are perceived is an important step in discovering how social interactions contribute to mechanisms that maintain or alleviate MDD and SP.…”

“…through avoidance of eye contact in patients suffering from SP [ 9 ]), yet it is nevertheless possible to consider such interactions as meaningful, even if one “failed to perform”. Meaningful social interactions tend to be of higher quality [ 10 ] and are described as being subjective and having emotional, informational, or tangible impact, and to enhance one’s life [ 11 ].…”

Social media and mental health: Reviewing effects on eudaimonic well-being

“…Social interaction with close others is generally perceived as a particularly meaningful and high-quality activity (e.g., Reis et al, 2000), which appears to be slightly more pronounced in face-to-face or voice communication versus text-based communication (e.g., Baym et al, 2004;Gonzales, 2014). Accordingly, social media companies are eager to increase "meaningful interaction" via their applications (Litt et al, 2020). Evidence on whether social media interactions contribute to meaningfulness is scarce, however.…”

Experiences of meaningful connection in the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Research to specifically understand the kinds of interactions experienced as meaningful connections is still breaking ground. A recent study (Litt et al, 2020) examined a large sample’s reports of meaningful interaction experiences (of which meaningful connection experiences would likely be constituent), and found such interactions to have a perceived life-enhancing emotional, tangible, or informational impact. Further research may explore the nuances of the psychological and interpersonal processes underpinning these positive impacts, the nature of meaningful interactions where people specifically feel connected to others, and how such interactions vary across contexts.…”