The effects of values and the presence of a mobile phone on friendship interactions

Friends are sources of social support and are often observed interacting in public settings while using their mobile phones. Four types of mobile phone use were predicted: distraction, distraction multitasking, facilitation, and facilitation multitasking. These types of mobile phone use were predicted to be influenced by communication technology use, values, and friendship quality. Furthermore, these phone use types were predicted to influence the quality of a friendship interaction. An observational paradigm was used to observe mobile phone use behaviors in friendship interactions. Participants were recruited in friendship dyads and completed communication technology, values, and friendship quality questionnaires before visiting the laboratory. Friends attended the appointment together and were shown to a waiting room area where they were left alone for five minutes, and their interaction was videotaped. Following the interaction, friends completed an interaction quality questionnaire. Analyses were conducted in HLM to account for nonindependence in the dyadic data. Neither communication technology use, values, nor friendship quality had an influence on the types of phone use. An actor-partner interaction model tested the influence of phone use on interaction quality. Each actor’s interaction quality was predicted from their own friendship quality and the four types of mobile phone use and from their partner’s friendship quality and the partner’s four types of phone use. The actor’s friendship quality increased interaction quality. The partner’s distraction decreased interaction quality and the actor’s distraction multitasking increased interaction quality. These results extend previous research on multitasking and suggest new understandings of social snacking and customized sociality

Cultural Differences in Garnering Social Capital on Facebook: French People Prefer Close Ties and Americans Prefer Distant Ties

The link between social capital (SC) and Facebook has been widely studied in the U.S., and less is known about how students from different cultures use the site to garner SC. We measured network composition, communication on Facebook, and SC via questionnaires in France and the U.S. We found that American students have a greater proportion of distant to close ties in their networks and higher levels of bridging SC than French, the latter preferring bonding SC. A stronger relationship between SC and communication via Facebook was observed in the U.S. These findings are explained by cultural differences in relatedness

Cultural Diversity in Couples and Collective Performance: Using a Culture-Based Memory Game to Measure Transactive Memory

Transactive memory refers to the way people in close relationships use each other’s memories as extensions of their own to improve their collaborative performance. Although pioneer research has been conducted among close couples, no studies have examined the effects of the cultural composition of couples on transactive memory. The goal of the present study was to extend research about the positive impact of cultural diversity on team performance to mixed- (French-Moroccan) and same-culture couples (French-French, Moroccan-Moroccan). Thirty heterosexual couples aged from 22 to 55 (M = 42.25 years and SD = 8.15) performed a culture-based memory game with cards depicting French and Moroccan culture. The order in which the pairs of cards were found is thought to reflect the efficiency of transactive memory. Results revealed that collective performance was better in mixed French-Moroccan couples than in same-culture couples, but only for the French culture cards. These findings suggest that cultural diversity in couples has an impact on transactive memory and should be taken into consideration

Tempted to Text: College Students’ Mobile Phone Use During a Face-to-Face Interaction With a Close Friend

We examined whether emerging adults would engage in mobile phone use (MPU) when given the opportunity to socialize face-to-face with a close friend in a laboratory setting. Sixty-three U.S. college student friendship dyads rated their friendship quality in an online survey before coming into the laboratory together. When they arrived for their appointment, they were asked to wait together in a room for 5 min. A hidden camera recorded each dyad. Friends then separately rated the quality of the interaction. We coded time spent using mobile phone in seconds. A hierarchical regression conducted at the level of the dyad controlling for friendship quality and gender showed that more MPU was associated with lower quality interactions. We discuss findings in terms of the potential for MPU to interfere with the development of friendship intimacy

Measuring latent ties on Facebook: A novel approach to studying their prevalence and relationship with bridging social capital

The goal of the current study was to develop an empirical measure of latent ties on Facebook. We begin with a brief literature review of the influence of social media use on social capital and how latent ties fit into this literature. Latent ties are defined as ties with whom a connection is made possible by an affordance of a technological platform, such as the Facebook friend list, but with whom one never communicates. Latent ties have often been considered beneficial for garnering bridging social capital, but their prevalence and relationship to social capital has not been measured empirically. In the current study, we describe a novel approach for measuring latent ties by questionnaire. In a sample of 164 participants, we found that nearly 40% of Facebook users’ networks were latent ties. Furthermore, the percent of latent ties in users’ networks was negatively associated with bridging social capital. Finally, we examined the discriminant validity of the latent ties measure, and found that the percent of latent ties in one’s Facebook network and the total number of Facebook friends (network size) were unrelated. Results are discussed in regard to possible uses of this measure of latent ties in future research

Private message me s'il vous plait : Preferences for personal and masspersonal communications on Facebook among American and French students

Facebook, a social networking tool used worldwide, provides affordances for public/masspersonal and private/personal communication. Based on previous cross-cultural research demonstrating that masspersonal communication is adaptive in individualistic cultural contexts, we hypothesized that using Facebook to broadcast messages to one's entire network would be relatively more common and appealing to people in countries with greater individualistic values. To test this hypothesis, data were collected in two Western countries differing in levels of individualism, France (204 women, 47 men) and the U.S. (75 women, 89 men), through questionnaires measuring their Facebook use. Results indicated that American college students had larger Facebook networks and used both more masspersonal and personal communication with acquaintances compared to French college students. Masspersonal communication was mediated by network size. French students used more personal communication with friends than American students, but this association was not mediated by network size. These findings suggest that the appeal of masspersonal communication increases as a function of social network size, however, level of engagement in personal communication on Facebook is a function of other cultural differences between the U.S. and France, such as differences in individualistic values

Phoning It in: Social Anxiety, Intolerance of Uncertainty, and Anxiety Reduction Motivations Predict Phone Use in Social Situations

Based on meta-analysis, a strong link between social anxiety and phone use has been established in the literature, but the underlying mechanisms of why social anxiety might cause people to use their phones are poorly understood. Intolerance of uncertainty is a transdiagnostic factor of many anxiety disorders and may help explain why socially anxious people tend to use their mobile phones as a tool to cope with, or distract from, inherently ambiguous social interactions. This non-experimental, correlational study had four core aims: to examine whether increases in social anxiety would relate to 1) increased phone usage during social interactions in groups, or 2) phone dependency; to examine whether intolerance of uncertainty and motivation to use phones mediates either of these relationships. To test these models, an opportunity sample of 252 participants completed a series of online questionnaires containing measures of social anxiety, intolerance of uncertainty, and phone usage. Correlational analysis of results showed increased phone dependency and phone use in social groups for people with high social anxiety. Serial mediation analysis showed that people who were more socially anxious also reported higher levels of intolerance of uncertainty, greater motives to use phones to reduce anxiety and higher phone use. We discuss these results with specific reference to compensatory internet use theory. In sum, it appears that for people with social anxiety, phone use in social situations tends to be motivated by reducing anxiety

“The Chinese virus”: How COVID-19’s transmission context and fear affect negative attitudes toward Chinese people.

This research examines the impact of COVID-19 fear on attitudes toward Chinese depending on the context of propagation of COVID-19. We predicted that COVID-19 fear was linked to negative attitudes toward Chinese people, especially when the spread of the virus was external (in China; vs. when the spread was internal with transmission within the French ingroup). We collected data online (N = 403) when COVID-19 was being transmitted externally, outside of France (Phase 1) and after transmission between French people had begun (Phase 2). We measured COVID-19 fear and attitudes toward Chinese people. Our hypothesis was supported. COVID-19 fear was linked to more negative attitudes toward Chinese people only in Phase 1. This study highlights individuals’ adoption of defence strategies is dependent on the societal context surrounding the threat. We also discuss the potential to promote peace and reduce conflict by focusing on internal crises versus external threats

Staying connected during stay‐at‐home: Communication with family and friends and its association with well‐being

COVID‐19 and the resulting stay‐at‐home orders issued to reduce the spread of the virus created a novel social situation in which people could not spend in‐person time with their family and friends. Thus, emerging technologies like video calling and other forms of mediated communication like voice calling and text messaging became important resources for people to stay in touch. The purpose of this study was threefold. First, we wanted to test whether people would use more mediated communication (video calls, voice calls, text messaging) to stay in touch during the stay‐at‐home order. Second, we wanted to see if increased mediated communication would be positively associated with well‐being. Finally, we explored whether mediated communication was related to age. To answer these questions, we surveyed 2090 participants who answered questions online about how their use of video calls, voice calls, and text messaging and their well‐being had changed since the stay‐at‐home order. Our results show that people increased their use of mediated communication, particularly video calling; and increases in mediated communication with close others, particularly friends, was related to higher levels of well‐being. Finally, we found that age was related only to the use of video calling; younger people tended to use more video calling. These findings support the compensatory theory of technology use, that people use technologically mediated communication to maintain contact with their close friends and family when in‐person contact is not possible, and that this form of contact, when in‐person interaction is unavailable, is associated with positive outcomes

Adolescents’ daily face-to-face and computer-mediated communication: Associations with autonomy and closeness to parents and friends

The amount of time adolescents spend communicating via digital technologies such as smartphones has led to concerns that computer-mediated communication (CMC) is displacing face-to-face (FtF) interactions and disrupting social development. Although many studies have examined CMC in adolescents' relationships with friends, few studies have examined the role of CMC in adolescents' renegotiation of closeness and autonomy with parents. To examine this issue, we administered an online daily diary with 169 U.S. adolescents to estimate the time they spend in CMC and FtF interactions and the number of texts they exchange with friends and parents. On the last day of the survey, we asked adolescents about their emotional closeness to friends and parents and their balance of closeness and volition with parents. Overall, we found more evidence for social stimulation than displacement effects of CMC. Texts and CMC time with friends predicted friend closeness after accounting for FtF time with friends; texts with parents predicted parent closeness after accounting for FtF time with parents. We also found support for our hypothesis that CMC would be associated with greater adolescent volition. CMC time with parents predicted greater volitional dependence (volition plus closeness) whereas texts with friends predicted greater independent decision-making (volition plus distance). We discuss how communication technologies are integrated into U.S. adolescents' relationships with friends and parents and how CMC can facilitate, rather than stifle, adolescents' adjustment of autonomy-relatedness with parents and their construction of emotional closeness with friends