This book explores how digital communication generates new intimacies and meanings of friendship in a networked society, developing a theory of mediated intimacies to explain how social media contributes to dramatic changes in our ideas about personal relationships, through themes of self, youth, families, digital dating and online social capital.

This book examines how intimate relationships are built, negotiated and maintained through social media. The study takes a cross-platform approach, analysing three social media platforms of different genres – Badoo, Couchsurfing and Facebook – and exploring two interactive forces that shape the way people communicate through social media: the platforms’ architecture and policies, and actual practises of use. Combining analysis of the political economy of social media with users’ perspectives of their own practises – as well as exploring the tensions between the two – the book provides a detailed picture of intimacy as a complex structure of continuity and change.

The Impact of Social Media in Modern Romantic Relationships is the communication field’s most major, comprehensive volume of the study of social media and romantic relationship development. It is the first volume in the discipline of communication studies intended to provide an overview of romantic development that includes all types of social media, such as Tinder and Facebook. The volume contains several major communication and media scholars who have researched social media and romantic relationship development.

The internet and the mobile phone have disrupted many of our conventional understandings of ourselves and our relationships, raising anxieties and hopes about their effects on our lives. In this second edition of her timely and vibrant book, Nancy Baym provides frameworks for thinking critically about the roles of digital media in personal relationships. Rather than providing exuberant accounts or cautionary tales, it offers a data-grounded primer on how to make sense of these important changes in relational life Fully updated to reflect new developments in technology and digital scholarship, the book identifies the core relational issues these media disturb and shows how our talk about them echoes historical discussions about earlier communication technologies. Chapters explore how we use mediated language and nonverbal behavior to develop and maintain communities, social networks, and new relationships, and to maintain existing relationships in our everyday lives. The book combines research findings with lively examples to address questions such as: Can mediated interaction be warm and personal? Are people honest about themselves online? Can relationships that start online work? Do digital media damage the other relationships in our lives? Throughout, the book argues that these questions must be answered with firm understandings of media qualities and the social and personal contexts in which they are developed and used. This new edition of Personal Connections in the Digital Age will be required reading for all students and scholars of media, communication studies, and sociology, as well as all those who want a richer understanding of digital media and everyday life.

This book offers a balanced, evidence-based account of the role of mobile and social media in personal relationships.

Lynne M. Webb (Ph. D., University of Oregon) is Professor in Communication at the University of Arkansas. She previously served as a tenured faculty member at the Universities of Florida and Memphis. Her research examines young adults' interpersonal communication in romantic and family contexts. Her research appears in over 50 essays published in scholarly journals and edited volumes, including computers in Human Behavior, Communication Education, Health Communication, and Journal of Family Communication. --Book Jacket.

Provides an interdisciplinary perspective on behaviors and strategies used to maintain intimate relationships.

The author presents a humourous look at her obsession with the Internet and her cellular phone, arguing that her dependence is a sign of how social media has made it difficult for her and her peers to have meaningful connections to others.

A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.

Examines the social media mechanism and how it is transforming communication in an increasingly networked society Social Media Communication: Trends and Theories explores how social media is transforming the way people think and behave. Providing students with an in-depth understanding of the mechanism underlying social media, this comprehensive textbook uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine social media use in a wide range of communication and business contexts. Each chapter is based on original research findings from the author as well as recent work in communication studies, neuroscience, information science, and psychology. Divided into two parts, the text first describes the theoretical foundation of social media use, discussing the impact of social media on information processing, social networking, cognition, interpersonal and group communication, the media industry, and business marketing. The second half of the book focuses on research-based strategies for effectively using social media in communication and business such as the news industry, heath care, and social movements. Offering detailed yet accessible coverage of how digital media technology is changing human communication, this textbook: Helps readers make the best use of social media tools in communication and business practices Introduces more than a dozen theories in the areas of communication, psychology, and sociology to highlight the theoretical frameworks researchers use in social media studies Identifies a variety of trends involving social media usage, including the app economy and patient care Addresses the relation between social media and important contemporary topics such as cultural diversity, privacy, and social change Presents 14 imperative social media topics, each with the power to change the ways you see and use social media Social Media Communication: Trends and Theories is the perfect textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in communication, business, journalism, business, and information science and technology. It is also an invaluable resource for researchers, educators, journalists, entrepreneurs, and professionals working in media management, advertising, public relations, and business marketing.