Browsing by Subject "Computer-mediated communication"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Digital contact does not promote wellbeing, but face-to-face contact does: A cross-national survey during the COVID-19 pandemic
    (Sage, 2021) Newson, Martha; Zhao, Yi; Zein, Marwa El; Sulik, Justin; Dezecache, Guillaume; Deroy, Ophelia; Tunçgenç, Bahar; Biostatistics, School of Public Health
    With restricted face-to-face interactions, COVID-19 lockdowns and distancing measures tested the capability of computer-mediated communication to foster social contact and wellbeing. In a multinational sample (n = 6436), we investigated how different modes of contact related to wellbeing during the pandemic. Computer-mediated communication was more common than face-to-face, and its use was influenced by COVID-19 death rates, more so than state stringency measures. Despite its legal and health threats, face-to-face contact was still positively associated with wellbeing, and messaging apps had a negative association. Perceived household vulnerability to COVID-19 reduced the positive effect of face-to-face communication on wellbeing, but surprisingly, people’s own vulnerability did not. Computer-mediated communication was particularly negatively associated with the wellbeing of young and empathetic people. Findings show people endeavored to remain socially connected, yet however, maintain a physical distance, despite the tangible costs to their wellbeing.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Emotional communication in instant messaging
    (2015-10-29) Pirzadeh, Afarin; Bolchini, Davide; Voida, Stephen; Stolterman, Erik; Wada, Terri
    Emotional communication is fundamental to everyday interaction. How well emotions are communicated is crucial to interpersonal relationships and individual well-being. Emotional communication in instant messaging (IM), however, can be challenging because of the absence of visual and aural nonverbal behaviors. Despite the growing number of technologically-focused solutions for supporting emotional communication in IM, limited design research has been done to study the actual users’ behaviors in communicating their emotion in IM and strategies they use to adapt emotional communication in this medium, with the purpose of establishing design solutions to support users' emotional communication. Connecting several bodies of HCI, design, and communication literature in the context of IM, this dissertation critically examines how users communicate emotion in IM and accordingly establishes user-centered multi-touch gesture based design solutions to support emotional communication in this medium. Understanding how users communicate their emotion in IM, the design issues, and corresponding design solutions help researchers and designers to support the user's emotional needs, resulting in the improvement of emotional communication strategies in IM.