Richer communication media produce more trust and social solidarity

Evidence

The poverty of social cues in computer-mediated communication inhibits interpersonal collaboration and trust, especially when the interaction is anonymous and not nested in a wider social context. Experiments that compare face-to-face and computer-mediated communication confirm that the richer the medium of communication, the more sociable, personal, trusting, and friendly the encounter. … Computer-based groups are quicker to reach an intellectual understanding of their shared problems—probably because they are less distracted by “extraneous” social communication—but they are much worse at generating the trust and reciprocity necessary to implement that understanding. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 583

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Media technologies offer only new forms of loneliness across successive eras — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 493