How Do Digital and In-Person Interactions Affect Wellbeing?

With social media on the rise and with the worries about privacy starting to surge, it's important to remember that strong relationships benefit humans. There are many studies that show that when we're connecting with another person that we feel better than when we're alone. But some people argue that interactions that are primarily digital, such as those on social media, come less naturally than face-to-face interactions. Some studies have shown that the amount of time people spend on their phones can have negative consequences on mental health. There have been mixed findings from these studies and thus it is not clear whether people should be scrolling on their phone or spending more time outside.

One of the complexities that researchers face when conducting studies about wellbeing is that many studies compare people of different socialization habits. That's unclear whether socializing habits are the cause or if wellbeing is actually the cause. On the contrary, research on this topic doesn't tell us much about how digital interactions may be affecting individuals' wellbeing in the moment. These studies typically don't compare digital interactions with their face-to-face counterparts. Digital socializing provides many benefits to people as well as creativity. For example, it makes it easier for people to maintain long-term relationships and meet new people online. It also allows for more in-depth conversations that one might not be able to have in the real life. Having said that, however, the potential is there for digital socializing to cause anxiety and concerns .

A new paper by Lara Kroencke and colleagues just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sought to answer these questions using data from three large-scale studies of undergraduate students, following their social activity over time. The act of following people's activity over time has allowed researchers to determine how people feel in different situations. By analyzing the same person throughout the day, they can see how moods vary in different contexts.

The Researchers' Method

Kroencke and her colleagues examined data from three studies involving over 3,000 undergraduate students who participated in 139,000 reports of their social activity and mood. Participants completed daily surveys for a period of time as long as it took. Throughout the day, participants received email notifications telling them to complete an online survey in which they reported on their activity in the 15 or 60 minutes prior to receiving the notification (the length of time differed between the studies). Every participant had a chance to answer questions about their mood during the brief period before they took the survey. They were then asked if they made any social interactions in the same time frame.

Importantly, the participants indicated the mode of communication for any social interaction they reported: face-to-face, social media, and email are the most common forms of communication. They're all good for different audiences - phone calls being more tailored to one audience than the other three. The researchers then classified responses into three categories: face-to-face, those that were computer-mediated, and those that were a combination of the two. Participants reported not socializing in just over a third of the reported time periods.

Interacting face-to-face is the most popular form of dating & meeting new people for 43% of people with ASD. Using email or social media are also common methods of communication. The most common form of computer-mediated interactions are texting. Social media and video/phone calls have become less popular.

The Results

Participants experienced better wellbeing after they interacted in person or engaged in mixed interactions, compared to time periods when they were interacting mostly via computers. So the question is, how did entirely computer-mediated interactions fare? People generally reported feeling better when interacting in person than to a distance. Even socializing electronically on your computer is healthier than not socially interacting in any way. Researchers have noted that face-to-face socializing offers the best mood boost, but socializing in other ways is better than nothing.

Compared to those who engage in less social interactions, the high level of combination lists did significantly better on a measure that required an understanding of the causal chain. A study found that people who had more face-to-face interactions with friends and family were happier than others whose social interactions took place mostly over the internet. However, the amount of time people spend on social media was not related to happiness. This suggests that people who have more time engaging in face-to-face interactions are likely to be better adjusted overall.

A research study conducted by the university looked at how personality impacts the effects of communication. Not surprisingly, those with a higher absorption tended to have more positive effects and those who were more conscientious experienced the positive benefits even more so. The effects of social interaction on wellbeing were not related to the participants’ levels of agreeableness, extraversion or conscientiousness, or openness. Personality doesn't change the average effects of communication modes; whether it be voice, text, or face-to-face interaction.

Research has found a paradox at the heart of human neurosis. People who are high in this trait seemed to benefit more than low ones but only up to a certain point. Researchers were surprised to find that people with a lower capacity for empathy would still be able to experience positive effects of mind training. The medical community knows that anxious people tend to indulge in social support because they seek it out, and need it for their personal well-being.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that these results are general patterns that emerged over many people having many different kinds of social experiences. So it is important to take them in context as they are not reflective of any one person's experience. Researchers can't examine the intricacies of each individual social interaction due to limitations in categorizing computer-mediated social interactions. Socializing in any form, whether it's over the phone, texting, or social media is likely to improve our mood. However, not all communication modes are created equal. We get the biggest boost from old-fashioned face-to-face socializing, and that boost seems to be the same whether or not we mix it with digital interactions.