Has the Internet become indispensable?
Communications of the ACM - Has the Internet become indispensable?
ContactMap: Organizing communication in a social desktop
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
Exploring technology adoption and use through the lens of residential mobility
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Evolutionary cyber-psychology: Applying an evolutionary framework to Internet behavior
Computers in Human Behavior
Bodily orientations around mobiles: lessons learnt in vanuatu
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Going to college and staying connected: communication between college freshmen and their parents
Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Supporting a sense of connectedness: meaningful things in the lives of new university students
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Major life changes and behavioral markers in social media: case of childbirth
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
"Real, but Glossy": technology and the practical pursuit of magic in modern weddings
Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing
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Many observers have praised new communication technologies for providing convenient and affordable tools for maintaining relationships at a distance. Yet the precise role of mediated communication in relationship maintenance has been difficult to isolate. In this paper, we treat residential moves as natural experiments that threaten existing social relationships and often force people to rely on mediated communication to maintain their old relationships. Results from a 3-wave survey of 900 residential movers describing 1892 relationships shows that email and the telephone play different roles in social relationships. Email helps maintain social relationships, in the sense that relationships decline when email drops after the move. However increases in email are not associated with increases in the depth of the relationship or exchanges of support. In contrast, phone calls help movers grow relationships and exchange social support.