Online conversation vs face to face interaction

Question

There are a lot of articles out there about the dangers of internet and some of them talk about the fact that online interactions are nothing compared to face to face conversation. Those sort of articles often say that online conversations can't fulfill the emotional needs you have and that people should talk to their friends in the "real world".

Recently, I was reading those article and saying to myself: "if they say so, it might be true". However, I now have a really dear online friend with whom I talk every day online and I'm wondering "is this really true?".

So, is there any serious research comparing a deep online friendship (with instantaneous one on one messaging) vs a "face to face" one? And some explanation as to why an online conversation isn't as fulfilling as a face to face one?

Answer 1

Here's a short annotated bibliography,* with the caveat that it represents a skim, cull, and summary of just a few dozen abstracts in fields I don't know much about. I offer it more as a series of leads to follow than a complete answer in itself. For example, it might be helpful to see that the literature seems to compare these using the terms "FtF" and "CMC" (computer-mediated communication).

Another caveat is that, as Meg pointed out in a comment, this might be a better Psych SE question than IPS. And of course quantitative research will never invalidate your personal experience :)

• Okdie et al., 2011: People formed more positive impressions of each other in face-to-face interactions.

• Rouhshad et al., 2016: Students preferred face-to-face tutoring because it's a "highly pastoral activity. To make online tuition succesful both tutors and students need training in how to communicate online in the absence of paralinguistic cues."

• Sprecher & Hampton, 2017: People liked people they met face-to-face more, but it was easy to catch up after switching from computer-only to face-to-face.

• Pierce, 2009: Teens who talked online felt more comfortable and made more friends, but also experienced more social anxiety when talking face-to-face; the effect was stronger for girls.

• Baek et al., 2012: Online "deliberation" generated more negative emotions (among other things).

• Pea et al., 2012: Preteen girls experienced more negative emotions with more media, whether social or not, but more positive emotions with face-to-face interactions.

• Wagner et al., 2014: Online and face-to-face intervention were equally good at treating depressive symptoms, but the symptoms recurred more intensely after face-to-face dropoff than after online dropoff.

• Calbring et al. (2017): A meta-study on using CBT to treat perfectionism found no significant difference between the results of face-to-face and online therapy. (Individual studies such as Egan et al., 2014 found better results for face-to-face.)

• Knop et al., 2016: People do more self-disclosure in offline groups (despite interacting less overall), but regard this self-disclosure less positively.

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_{* I didn't want to make an unscrollably long answer, so these are short citations and links; if you can't access them and want abstracts, let me know and I'll paste them in.}