Читать книгу The Handbook of Solitude - Группа авторов - Страница 17

Finally, beyond culture, there is another context that is reshaping how we think about solitude. Today, people’s social interactions are not limited to face‐to‐face encounters or to speaking on the telephone. Instead, technological advances have made computer‐mediated communication not only possible but prevalent in our daily lives. Indeed, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tic Toc, FaceTime, Skype, text messaging, and numerous other platforms for computer‐mediated communication had become part of the everyday world that has expanded the way we interact on a daily basis.

As a result of this, it is absolutely essential that we examine what solitude means in this digital context. For example, there is no real consensus about at what point increasingly interactive technologies would render someone as no longer “alone” (i.e., scrolling through social media feeds vs. commenting and responding to posts vs. exchanging texts in real time vs. direct audio communication vs. direct audio‐visual communication). Indeed, for decades, scholars have examined individual differences in tendencies (both motivations and actual behaviors) to move toward or away from interactions in social settings. Now, the digital world in which we live demands that we expand our research to examine the meaning and impact of moving toward or away from social interaction in technologically mediated contexts.

Emerging work is already pointing to individual differences in, among other things, the use of connective forms of media (forms of media that have the potential to connect individuals to others such as e‐mail; Nelson et al., 2016), the extent of interaction that occurs when using digital forms of communication (e.g., how people interact on social media; Scott et al., 2018), and the role of technology in maintaining relationships (e.g., use and content of text messages between friends and romantic partners; e.g., Rideout & Robb, 2018). Just as we can identify meaning and outcomes associated with withdrawing from in‐person settings, we are starting to see that there is meaning and impact to be found in what it means to engage in solitude in the context of a digitally connected world. For example, emerging work is showing that individual differences in whether and how (i.e., competently or not) a person engages in computer‐based interactions can be linked to indices of adjustment and maladjustment (e.g., empathy, loneliness, self‐esteem, prosocial behaviors, aggression; Brody, 2018; Kim & Lee, 2011; Lapierre, 2020; Nelson et al., 2016). Taken together, it is impossible to approach a volume devoted to understanding the meaning and impact of solitude in contexts without examining it in the digital age in which we now live.