Reality, emotionality, and intimacy in digital social connecting: The experience of being superconnected

Abstract

The below excerpt from Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life focuses on what I have learned about the reality, emotionality, and intimacy of the digital experience in the course of interviewing over 200 people and reviewing related research from a number of disciplines, including Sociology, Psychology, Communication, Media Studies, and Information Science. Over and over again, those whom I have interviewed tell me that digital life is real life and is filled with activities and moments that have great meaning for them. For more on the context for these interviews, my research methodology, and the multidisciplinary research that I reviewed and synthesized, please see the second edition of Superconnected, in English or in Serbian. And please note that a third edition of Superconnected is slated to be published by Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) in 2020.