9 - Social Displacement

Summary

This chapter addresses the long-standing concern that new media technologies are displacing face-to-face conversations with close relational partners. Starting with the adoption of the telephone, the social displacement hypothesis has been a guiding perspective to understand new technology adoption. This chapter examines evidence of displacement in research on the internet and social media. This chapter also examines the evidence whether co-present media use, or using a smartphone while co-present with others, is problematic for relationship quality and conversational quality. It explores social normative explanations as well as relationship-specific outcomes in regard to co-present device use.