When was the last time you heard them say...

Some of you might recognize the title of this entry from the Stevie Wonder song, "These Three Words." The song, actually, covers many of the same concepts that i'm talking about: intimacy, interpersonal relationships, relational development--not to mention it's one of the best songs in history from a musical legend!

But progressing to the point for today. The question that has prompted this inquiry is:

How are social networks affecting face-to-face interactions and relationships?

Now, of course this isn't a new question. In fact, the idea that technology would threaten some of the fundamental constructs of society can be traced throughout history. This particular question sprung to the surface after a conversation I had in which someone told me that they seldom responded to messages on Myspace and Facebook, which I thought was odd, because that's my preferred way of communicating (don't judge me!)

The communication scholar I'm highlighting in this entry is James Honeycutt. Honeycutt built upon relational development theories that began to take shape in the 1970's. In 1993, Honeycutt proposed a conceptual breakthrough: He proposed that it wasn't disclosure that lead to increased intimacy in interpersonal relationships, it was the meaning assigned to these disclosure events by the parties involved.

This is pretty revolutionary when we stop and process it for a moment. Allow me to recast this concept in a different scenario: Imagine that someone your dating tells you they previously dated someone of the same sex; this situation could go several different ways. Perhaps it violates your expectations of a potential companion (and there's a theory that addresses that), or maybe you applaud the courage that someone demonstrates in telling you something so personal, so you in turn feel a deeper level of intimacy--this is all relative to the meaning that is placed on the message, not the disclosure of the message.

So what's this have to do with communicating via social networks?

Well, as previously stated, my friend mentioned that he doesn't rely on communicating with people through social media channels, and what became increasingly apparent in that conversation was that it was because he interpreted the use of communicating with people by way of social media to be impersonal. In this case, the mode of communication is assigned meaning, a meaning that, to him, suggested a lack of importance of the message. Interestingly, it had never occurred to me that there was a distinct difference between communication over the phone and communication over the Internet. Now to be fair, I do understand that relationships grow when the time spent using "rich" communication channels increases (i.e, face-to-face, telephone)but I've always been more concerned with the clarity of the message rather than the transmission.

So here's the conclusion: Social media is awesome! It serves a very essential purpose in the grand scheme of communication. However, there are times when someone needs to hear you say, "I love you!"