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Because smartphones have increased the ease and opportunity to communicate virtually through a wide variety of apps, the amount of time spent in face-to-face communication has decreased dramatically. What are the differences between digital and face-to-face communication and do those differences matter? Real-world interactions are, and have been for thousands of years, characterized by four features that are significantly affected by digital communications. Consider the following from the article entitled "The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood", published in The Atlantic, March 13, 2024.

#1 Real-world interactions are embodied, meaning that we use our hands, facial expressions, and body language to communicate. Virtual interactions, in contrast, mostly rely on language alone. We are likely to produce a generation who will be less comfortable and less skilled at interacting in person when they become adults.

#2 Real-world interactions are synchronous, meaning sending and receiving communications happen at the same time. We learn to use subtle cues about timing and conversational turn taking in order to get “in sync” with another. Digital communications lack this synchrony. There is less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment gets no immediate response.

#3 Real-world communications primarily involve one-to-one communication, or sometimes one-to-several. Online communications can be carried on asynchronously with dozens of others, which diminishes the depth achieved in all of them. With a large audience, one’s reputation is always on the line. An error or poor “performance” can damage social standings with large numbers of peers. These communications tend to be more performative and, therefore, more anxiety-inducing than real-world one-to-one conversations.

#4 Real-world interactions usually take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are motivated to invest in relationships and restore relationships when hurt occurs. On many virtual networks, however, people can easily block others or quit when they are displeased. Relationships within such networks are usually much more disposable.

Online interactions can bring out antisocial behavior that people never display in their real-world communities. These behaviors take their toll even on adults, who should be able to recognize the anxiety-producing features of life online. The negative effects on an adolescent in the early years of puberty, while their “experience expectant” brains are being formed by feedback from their online social interactions, are greatly increased.

Next time. . . Are smartphones related to other harms in addition to those having to do with communications?