Face-to-face interaction

A face-to-face (FTF) interaction is an in-person, unmediated communication between two or more people. In addition to powerfully affecting friendship, romance, and other interpersonal relationships, FTF interactions and technology-mediated communications are crucial factors in fields such as business, education, and politics. As technology-mediated communication has grown since the late twentieth century, so too have concerns that declines in FTF interaction may have serious consequences.

Overview

Text messages, email, social media, and video conferencing are among the many ways people communicate in the twenty-first century. All of these methods involve mediation by an electronic device such as a cell phone or computer. To date, communications research has largely focused on textual, web-based, computer-mediated communications (CMC) and text messaging and how they compare to FTF interaction.

In contrast with CMC, during an FTF interaction, the tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions of each person present provide additional information that affects the meaning of the words being exchanged. Research suggests that social differences, such as gender or job position, are felt more prominently in FTF than CMC interactions. In a study published by Donald F. Sacco and Mohamed M. Ismail in July 2014, researchers found that FTF interactions helped foster greater feelings of social belonging and interaction enjoyment when compared to instant messaging interactions. FTF interactions have been linked to greater expression of politeness, conformity, and opinion change, while CMC interactions are associated with deindividuation, sense of anonymity, and disinhibition. The difference in social constraint can be positive or negative depending on the situation; for example, lower-ranking group members might offer more ideas via CMC than in an FTF setting, promoting innovation, while the lack of interpersonal cues that might elicit empathy has exacerbated cyberbullying on social media and other technology-mediated platforms. In the twenty-first century, cyberbullying has led to several teen suicides, bringing it to the forefront of popular discourse on FTF versus CMC interactions.

In the business realm, the use of CMC versus FTF communication affects networking, sales, and team management. Research indicates that business teams may perform better using FTF communication for tasks constrained by time limits or requiring interdependence, whereas CMC interactions may be more effectual for such tasks as brainstorming, where free, egalitarian participation is more desirable. Many business leaders believe FTF interactions are better suited to developing trust, growing a deeper network of business connections, and building and maintaining relationships with current and prospective clients.

In education, the growth of online courses has sparked debate regarding learning outcomes for students, especially as these environments lack the FTF interactions common to the traditional classroom setting. FTF education appears to be better for such interpersonal tasks as dialogue and debate, developing research skills, and mentoring; online education may be more suitable for largely one-way interactions such as informing and assessing students. Another factor is that FTF lecture-based learning also costs institutions more money than online platforms do.

FTF interactions have implications for politics as well. Policy decisions are often derived from the findings of social science research, much of which has been conducted using group CMC methods rather than FTF interactions for data collection. The persuasion and conformity effects of FTF interactions can also play key roles in political campaigns, grassroots organizing, and lobbying efforts. CMC platforms, meanwhile, have gained popularity as a political tool, as seen in various election campaigns around the world.

The less-studied area of video conferencing, or video-mediated communication (VMC), offers the nonverbal information that is not available in CMC and telephonic interactions, making VMC more comparable to FTF interaction. Thus, it is considered useful for not only business and educational purposes but also medical, psychotherapeutic, and judicial interactions. Research has suggested, however, that FTF communication enables informal dialogue, complex task completion, and naturalistic facial expressions and body language, all of which are hampered in VMC. Therefore, technology-mediated communication and FTF interactions have both remained valuable tools.

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 saw a severe decline in FTF interactions and a sizeable increase in CMC and VMC interactions due to quarantine and isolation measures introduced to combat the spread of COVID-19. Many businesses shifted to a remote work format while many schools in the US and around the world transitioned to remote learning, both of which utilized CMC and VMC interactions and came with their own unique set of challenges. When several companies began reversing flexible remote work policies by the mid-2020s and requiring employees to return to the office at least part of the workweek, leaders often cited the benefits of face-to-face interaction as part of their reasoning.

Bibliography

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