Electronic Intimacy Christine Rosen Summary

Summary of Christine Rosen’s Article “Electronic Intimacy”

Christine Rosen explores how the new age of communication through technology, which she terms “electronic intimacy,” alters the face of relationships. She begins her article by recalling a time of when she was younger and had a pen pal. She recounted the handwritten letters that they wrote back and forth between each other and the deepened relationship that has occured a result. Now she says that she rarely puts pen to paper and relies on emails and text messages, which she embraces for their “brilliant efficiency” (Rosen 2012, 48). Rosen then begins to look at how our chosen forms of communication can alter the emotional connection. She says that when we start to write someone we” prime our emotional pump” meaning we think about how we are feeling at the time (Rosen 2012, 48.) She states that writing with a pen and paper gives us to time to do this whereas emailing and texting encourages an immediate affirmation or rejection of our emotions. She also states that those electronic means of communication have introduced a new form of social anxiety (Rosen 2012, 49).

They found that the more time and friends people have on Facebook, they more likely they were to think that others have better lives than they did, and they were less likely to think that life was fair (Rosen 2012, 49). She also states that researchers have confirmed that social networking is pleasurable but publicizing everything on social media sites is linked to the anxiety we experience. Rosen then brings us to the main point of the article which is that the age we are living in is the age of “electronic intimacy” (Rosen 2012, 49) Scientific research has proven that we get a dopamine rush when we receive new emails but, we also get social anxiety when we have new