Research Analyzes Today's Brave New Digital Relationships

Newswise — A recent study by the Internet tracking firm Hitwise found that the online social network MySpace.com has become the country's most popular Web site, accounting for 4.46 percent of all Internet visits in the U.S. during the week ending July 8. A Duke University study also recently reported that Americans have fewer close, personal friends than they used to. Finally, a Rutgers study this month reports that handheld digital devices such as Blackberries can be harmful to mental health, warning companies about employee addiction to technology.

Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University, believes all these studies are interrelated. Bugeja's award-winning book, "Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age" (Oxford University Press), warned about the addictive nature of technology at home, school and work and how our everyday use of technology has eroded our primary relationships.

Bugeja recently hosted an online chat session focusing on Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites for the National Association for Campus Activities. In August he also moderated a related panel titled "Facing the Facebook: Administrative Issues Involving Social Networks" at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Next month he will be bringing his message to groups as diverse as the Iowa National Guard and the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association. He has identified five reasons for today's "interpersonal divide": 1. Media systems change value systems "The more we use technology, the less time we have to nurture our primary relationships," said Bugeja. "We bought computers, iPods, Blackberries and cell phones thinking they would enhance our relationships with family, friends and coworkers. Instead, these devices are eroding our personal and professional relationships."

"The reason is simple: Communication systems alter value systems," he said. "We're spending more time communicating via social networks, ignoring those in our immediate environment. Meanwhile, television viewing devours leisure time. Of course we're lonely or distracted most of the day. We're searching for meaningful relationships in front of screens and monitors."

2. Time spent with gadgets rather than friends

"People need to take an inventory of technology at home and work," Bugeja said. "Add to TV and PC use telephones with separate lines and caller identification, family cell phones with all sorts of texting and photo functions, voice mail, laptops, Web and video cameras, Internet stations, security and video monitors, motion detectors, hand-held devices (from iPods to GameBoys), gaming consoles, DVD and MP3 players, CD stereo systems, wave radios, cable and satellite access, and so much more. We leave home and go to work and use the same gadgets again. Many of us, including students, are depressed because of stress or addiction and seek self help using the same digital gadgets that are the source of our problems, visiting Web sites or social networks instead of resolving issues interpersonally, face-to-face."

3. Friendships and digital displacement

"Technology displaces people," he said. "On campus you hear people in restrooms using cell phones to make a date or breaking up with significant others on chat. Helicopter parents telephone their sons and daughters throughout the day, forgetting that intruding in this manner displaces us to the extent that many have to lie. A student says, 'I'm on my way to the library to study' when they are really heading to a bar.

Studies such as a recent one by the Pew Research Center are inherently flawed, Bugeja claims, noting that reports of increased contact between parents and children assume stronger family ties based on frequency of contact. "They fail to factor in the falsehoods of digital displacement," he says.

4. Accumulated effect of mediated communication on friendships

Bugeja notes that we are seldom out of touch with anyone anywhere anymore. An electronic gadget or portable computer is usually within reach. "Why is it," he asks, "that so many still feel a void in their lives-which they attempt to fill using more technology? We are forgetting how to interact meaningfully with others face-to-face,- an ability I call 'interpersonal intelligence' -because we opt for on-demand rather than genuine contact, relying on technology to mediate our thoughts, words, and deeds. We pay a price, not only in access fees but also in feelings."

5. Squandered time and friendships

"We use cell phones while driving in rainstorms chatting with friends while our toddlers are in the backseats of vans being entertained by Disney DVDs," said Bugeja. "We are teaching our children to elevate convenience, which technology can provide, over substance, which it cannot." Bugeja notes that for millennia people also have enjoyed the friendship and companionship of dogs and horses-- -the two species that need human interaction. "They cannot be entertained by technology, like our children," he said. "The question is, 'Are we neglecting dogs and horses in their pens and stalls while we amuse ourselves in the digital world?'"