Smartphones and Face‐to‐Face Interaction: Digital Cross‐Talk During Encounters in Everyday Life

Using data collected from focus groups and nonparticipant observations, this article explores how and why cross‐talk by way of smartphone affects face‐to‐face encounters. The findings show there are three types of digital cross‐talk: exclusive, semi‐exclusive, and collaborative. Furthermore, it was found that digital cross‐talk can either facilitate or disrupt the expressive order of an encounter. Semi‐exclusive and collaborative digital cross‐talk were found to facilitate encounters. Exclusive digital cross‐talk was found to disrupt or have little influence on encounters, depending on whether or not interlocutors successfully engaged in a corrective process, an avoidance process, or aggressive face‐work.     

Distinguishing Mother–Infant Interaction From Stranger–Infant Interaction at 2, 4, and 6 Months of Age

Observers watched videotaped face‐to‐face mother–infant and stranger–infant interactions of 12 infants at 2, 4, or 6 months of age. Half of the observers saw each mother paired with her own infant and another infant of the same age (mother tapes) and half saw each infant paired with his or her mother and with a stranger (infant tapes). Observers were asked to judge which was the mother–infant dyad in each pair. Observers' accuracy improved as infants aged and was above chance for both mother and infant tapes when infants were 6 months. Differences between mother–infant and stranger–infant dyadic communication patterns also emerged as the infants aged. At 6 months, mother–infant dyads had more symmetrical communication and less asymmetrical communication than stranger–infant dyads.