Social Behavior and Technology

Catalog description

This course explores personal connections in the digital age, and how information and communication technologies impact our lives and relationships. It focuses on how people manage interactions and identities, develop and maintain relationships, accomplish social goals, create shared meanings, and engage in collaboration and conflict in social media. Emphasis will be placed on how current thinking in relational communication can explain and anticipate interpersonal dynamics on the Internet, but also on how online behaviors may challenge traditional principles of human communication. A major part of the course is a semester-long research project in which students working in small groups design, run, and present their own empirical study of personal relationships and technology.