Abstract:
How does using the Internet in different ways affect our relationships and our social interactions? Although a substantial amount of research has attempted to address this issue, results have been inconsistent. Personal relationships are difficult to study because they need a lot of time to develop. Once developed, most personal relationships tend to remain stable. This stability of personal relationship poses a problem for studying the impact additional communication modalities might have on relationship initiation, maintenance or dissolution.

Using the disruption associated with residential mobility, my work focuses on development of a deeper theoretical understanding of the ways relationships are initiated, maintained and dissolved, and the role of communication technology in this process. Residential mobility represents a natural experiment, because it puts people in a situation where some of their previous face-to-face interactions must stop or decline, leaving mediated communication, such as phone or email, as a way to retain contact.

In this talk, I will discuss preliminary findings from a national study of recent movers, focusing on what happens to particular social relationships when people move. Our data suggests that while, frequency of interaction via in person meetings changes depending on whether people moved away or closer to their partners, frequency of phone calls declines under both conditions. Surprisingly, frequency of emailing does not change regardless of change in geographical distance from contacts. However, a decrease in frequency of emailing with a partner has a significant negative effect on subsequent feelings of closeness and receipt of emotional support from that partner.

Bio:
Irina Shklovski is a doctoral student at the Human Computer Interaction Institute in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is advised by Professors Robert Kraut and Sara Kiesler. Her main interests center around the impact of technology on social relationships and psychological well-being. This research has been published in the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication and in several book chapters and conference presentations. Currently she is working with Robert Kraut and Jonathon Cummings (Duke University), investigating the impact of residential mobility on development and maintenance of social relationships and the role technology plays in this process. Irina recently spent a summer working with the Intel People and Practices research group studying long distance movers and their patterns of technology use. Her research is supported by an NSF graduate fellowship.

If you would like to meet with Irina, or for more information, please contact Jofish Kaye.