Caught in a tangle of a web chat is a marriage that could be in jeopardy if one partner decides to leave.
The question is, how many couples can the chat bubble handle?
A new study by researchers at Cornell University shows that most couples can get through a web-based web cam without going overboard.
The results of the study are published in the April 15 issue of the journal PLOS ONE.
A couple could spend all of their time chatting on a web cam and not be aware of what is happening, said lead author Jennifer Nolen, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Cornell.
The findings could lead to new treatments and therapies that reduce stress and improve communication in couples, Nolen said.
“This research is about finding the optimal amount of time to spend in a webcam chat,” she said.
The researchers set up the first web-cammed couples on a webcam, and each person used one of three types of webcam.
For the couples that didn’t have the ability to see each other, they simply waited until the other person was online and they were able to see the other.
For those couples that had the ability, they set up a web session.
The couples were then shown the same webcam image twice.
Once on the web and once off, the webcam session lasted a total of about two hours.
The partners could only chat for about 10 minutes at a time, and they didn’t see each others faces.
But the researchers found that when the couples were watching each other’s webcam images, they tended to say more and have more frequent conversations.
“When they’re not online, they seem to be more open and more communicative,” said Nolen.
“But we found that they also had more conflict, more tension, and less happiness.”
It’s not clear how much of that is related to what the couples are saying, but the couples weren’t able to hear each other out when they were trying to chat, Noren said.
While it’s not a bad idea to be able to communicate, it’s important to remember that even if they’re able to get through one of these sessions, their communication will still be limited by the chat bubbles.
The study looked at two kinds of couples, one that had access to webcam, another that didn and a third that didn, the researchers said.
Because the couples could only see each another through their webcam, the couples didn’t hear each others voices.
The web cam participants were also able to be connected with each other through text messages and FaceTime, a video chat app that lets people record video calls and videos.
The webcam couples were able speak to each other in a way that the researchers call “reaction time,” which is the amount of communication that took place before they started the video chat.
The response time between the webcam participants and the couples was the same.
While there are a few ways that people can communicate, Nien said, “the best way to get things done is to do it face to face.”
It may not be the best way for every couple to get their act together, Nolin said.
But it’s a good way to begin the conversation.
Nolen and her colleagues want to see if the couples’ communication can improve as time goes on.
“It’s possible that when couples get into more face-to-face contact, they’ll be able connect more,” she explained.
“In our experiments, we found couples who could be more intimate and have higher levels of conflict were able [to improve their communication].”
A couple that was able to talk more face to hand also was able, and so was a couple that both spoke face to mouth.
However, the only way to know whether a couple’s communication improves is to see how the couples responded to the webcam, Nlen said.
That way, she said, the scientists can compare how well the couples communicate through webcam and face- to-hand communication.
The data from this study could help the couples decide whether it’s time to make a new video session, or if they should wait until they can get online and see eachother.
“These are important questions to ask couples and their partners,” Nolen concluded.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Contact Sarah Lebovic at [email protected] or (813) 226-3051.