Research

J494

In a Strategic Communication Research Methods course, my team and I explored the effects of technological advancement on communication. We compared preferences of face-to-face and computer mediated communication.

We always hear how our society is overwhelmingly connected to our devices, but how has this impacted the way we interact during in-person situations? Key elements we compared when analyzing our data were age cohorts and personality traits; such as amount of extraversion and affective empathy.

Our primary research consisted of quantitative data collected through the creation of an online survey and qualitative data gathered through individual interviews.

Two core research questions we wanted to answer:

1) What are the personality differences- such as extraversion and affective empathy- among those who prefer to use face-to-face or computer-mediated communication?

2) What are the age differences among those who prefer to use face-to-face compared to computer-mediated communication?

From our research, we were able to determine that affective empathy, amount of extroversion and age demographics have an impact on whether someone prefers face-to-face or computer mediated communication. We also learned in which situations each form is most effective.