January 2012
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43 Reads
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13 Citations
This chapter reviews several studies on the mechanisms though which computermediated communication influences the development of social relationships. Experiments in which participants are randomly assigned to communication either over the computer or through another modality, have the advantage of unravelling the causal direction in the link between communication modality and strength of social relationships. The chapter shows that students who are assigned to meet in an Internet chat room grow to like each other more than those who first meet face to face. Whether the very-short-term interactions that participants have in the laboratory experiment can be generalized to the longer-term development of social relationships, however, is an open question. The chapter concludes that there are few unqualified effects of using the Internet. Although Internet communication can have transformational effects, these depend on individual differences in personality and motivations, and on the nature of the online groups to which they become attached.