Social Interaction Analysis

In this article, the researchers studied how different types of people express themselves through various forms of interaction. They divided the participants into two different groupings: introverts vs extroverts and neurotic vs nonneurotic. A pervious study had been performed concluded that social interaction through the internet leads to “loneliness and depression among its users”. (sss) Although, another study concluded that the anonymity of the internet made it easier for people to interact. The internet provides many different services, and a diverse collection of people use these services for various reasons. The researchers used conclusions from previous research as a basis for their study, including: the anonymity allows people

Their ages ranged from 20 to 32 years old. Each participant entered the same chat room (#Israel in Dalnet), and took part in a twenty minute discussion. After, they were given questionnaires to complete. One of the questionnaires was made up of four questions. Two of the questions were answered with either a yes or no, and they focused on whether the participants were more willing to share things with the people they met online or with their “real life” friends. The other two questions were answered on a scale of 1 (“not at all”) to 7 (“a great deal”), and they focused on the participant’s personal reflection on the information they shared via the internet and how their families would react. The researchers standardized these answers (Z scores and then T score), and found the average. The averages formed a “Real Me” index, and the higher the score indicated that the participant’s “real me” leaned more towards the internet. The second questionnaire given was The Eyeneck Personality

This means that extroverts tend to find their “real me” through face-to-face social interactions, whereas neurotic individuals tend to find their “real me” though online interaction. The researchers then went on to further divide the participants into four subgroups: high on extroversion and high on neuroticism, high on extroversion and low on neuroticism, low on extroversion and high on neuroticism, and low on extroversion and low on neuroticism. (fhiewf) They performed a between-subjects factorial design, on the “real me” scores. The results for extroversion (F(1,36) = 6.38; p < .016) confirm the hypothesis that extroverts favor traditional social interaction and introverts favor internet interaction when expressing their “real me”. The results for neuroticism (F(1,36) = 3.43; p < .072) confirm the hypothesis that neurotic people gravitate towards the internet and nonneurotic individuals favor face-to-face interactions to locate their respective “real me”. The results also show that individuals who were both neurotic and introverted had the heghest “real me” average score (M=55.98) and those who were extroverted and nonneurotic had the lowest “real me” average score