Paper Reading #2 Intimacy in Long-Distance Relationships over Video Chat

Intimacy in Long-Distance Relationships over Video Chat
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2207785


Carman Neustaedter & Saul Greenberg


Carman Neustaedter is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Cana. He researches Human-Computer Interaction and Design.
http://www.carmster.com/

Saul Greenberg is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary. He primarily researches Human-Computer Interaction.
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~saul/wiki/pmwiki.php



Summary
   Carman Nestaedter and Saul Greenberg were studying the affects of technology on long-distance relationships. They especially wanted to know if long-distance relations aided with technology such as video chat, could have as an intimate experience as a face-to-face one. They gathered 14 participants to participate in a video chat experiment. This study might have been a little bit biased because most, if not all of the participants were graduate students, teachers, or peer teachers within a university. The spouses of the faculty workers did have a wide range of disciplines however. The studies were monitored closely through Skype or face-to-face interviews. 
   Each day began with SMS texting between the two partners. They usually said something reassuring such as "I love you." The texting was predominantly used when one or more of the partners were not available. If they were both mobile, they would call each other on the phone. Eventually, video chat such as Skype became more popular just because seeing eye-to-eye lets the partners feel as if they are actually seeing each other. Neustaedter and Greenberg stumbled onto further findings though. Video chat requires the two partners to be available at the same time. If they are in a different time zone, it becomes more difficult to meet up. These particular participants would most likely meet up on the weekend when work or school wasn't so busy.
   With the video chat can come a variety of other activities for the partners to stay intimate with each other. One of the most common practices was watching videos or movies at the same time to feel closer to one another. Parallel activities through video chat such as this one heighten peer to peer relationships. Parallel activities can even include online sexual relations such as cyber-sexing however, most of the participants did not include this. 
   By being a part of each others lives daily, they become companions. This is a big part intimate relationships which technology helps to facilitate. Nestaedter and Greenberg concluded that video chat definitely improves long distance relationships.

 Other papers with similar topics:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1358628.1358758&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1262690.1262907&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2212776.2212439&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1952222.1952288&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1958824.1958835&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1531407.1531428&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2212776.2212438&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1958824.1958836&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2212776.2223668&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1314161.1314204&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=110758018&CFTOKEN=42757545 

   This report is not that novel as there are many other papers listed above that research nearly the same situation. I feel that researching long-distance relationships via technology is nothing new and video chat especially has been studied heavily for its effects. This paper is similar to some of these other papers because of trying to find how people cope with long-distance relationships. The first paper, Bridging gaps: affective communication in long distance relationships, has the same idea as this paper except it doesn't necessarily focus on video chat. Another paper, Feelybean: communicating touch over distance, explores different mediums partners can use to stay in touch. As shown by these examples and the others linked above, this topic is definitely not novel and has been studied in a variety of different fashions.

Evaluation
   I feel most of what Neustaedter and Greenberg was not evaluated that well. Most of their studies were qualitative in that they described their results and the satisfaction of their participants. This means that the studies were no very quantitative or did not give very much hard statistical data. Given the nature of the experiment however, this is understandable. The results from the studies were mostly subjective as they could vary wildly from person to person but most of the people in the studies had positive results. For instance, one couple really enjoyed video chatting constantly but another would only chat once they were all dressed up. In these different experiences, these participants interactions will vary widely which makes some of the opinions in this paper subjective. There were not many objective results unless you count peoples opinions as being objective. The type of participants chosen was very narrow and might have possibly led to skewed data.

Discussion
   I do not think the work they did was very novel or necessary. It was interesting to view their subset of data from this wider study but other than that, it was not very useful. The evaluation was not that great either. There was a lot of subjective and qualitative data which did not seem very concrete in my eyes. I respect their experiments and am interested in the data they collected, but I don't see how this particular experiment is any different from the next one that studies technology in long distance relationships.