Start Date
11-12-2016 12:00 AM
Description
This paper contributes to understanding multicommunicating when individuals in face-to-face social settings are at the same time engaging in other conversations via their social media devices. While multicommunicating was researched in business settings - suggesting increased efficiency and effectiveness - no research examined the impacts in social settings. In this research-in-progress paper, we report preliminary findings from an ethnographic study of social gathering and socializing when some members of a social group communicate via social media at the same time. Drawing on Habermas’ theory of systems and lifeworld we demonstrate that multicommunicating during social gatherings is driven by systems’ rationalization (to be in more than one place at the same time) which affects the lifeworld of the social group, disrupting their social interaction and socialization. In other words, we explain that the systems logic of multicommunicating colonizes the lifeworld and thus changes the phenomenon of socializing as we know it.
Recommended Citation
Harris, Geri and Cecez-Kecmanovic, Dubravka, "Multicommunicating and Socializing in the Digital Age" (2016). ICIS 2016 Proceedings. 9.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/SocialMedia/Presentations/9
Multicommunicating and Socializing in the Digital Age
This paper contributes to understanding multicommunicating when individuals in face-to-face social settings are at the same time engaging in other conversations via their social media devices. While multicommunicating was researched in business settings - suggesting increased efficiency and effectiveness - no research examined the impacts in social settings. In this research-in-progress paper, we report preliminary findings from an ethnographic study of social gathering and socializing when some members of a social group communicate via social media at the same time. Drawing on Habermas’ theory of systems and lifeworld we demonstrate that multicommunicating during social gatherings is driven by systems’ rationalization (to be in more than one place at the same time) which affects the lifeworld of the social group, disrupting their social interaction and socialization. In other words, we explain that the systems logic of multicommunicating colonizes the lifeworld and thus changes the phenomenon of socializing as we know it.