Calling on Connection

The Effects of Connective Technologies

on Our Sense of Belonging
Nur Farizah Binte Mohd Sedek*
University of New York in Prague^ (Czech Republic)
December 20, 2017

Connectivity is now everywhere. Thanks to technological advancements, we now have

the capability to create connections with people who are thousands of miles away from where we
are, people we have never met in person and perhaps may never will, bridging distances across
oceans and bringing the entire world closer. Moreover, thanks to globalization, the boom in the
travel industry, and the open market, increasing number of people are now more open and more
comfortable in interacting with others across nations and cultures, making the demarcation line
that is drawn to differentiate our sense of self and sense of belonging all the more blurred; we are
now becoming more inclined to identify ourselves with wider and less homogenous social
networks. This itself is a positive direction where we may learn from each other’s culture and
thus enriching our own lives.
However, there also has been much debate surrounding the very use of connective
technologies where our devices are rather a hindrance to forming a well-established and
wholesome connection with the people in our lives who should matter more – our immediate,
real-time relationships with friends and family. Therefore, it has become all the more imperative
to take a closer look at how connective technologies, particularly the smartphone, are being used
when it comes to establishing or diminishing our sense of belonging. Herein we discuss several
research that has been done to examine the influence our phone has on our ability to develop
interpersonal relationships and thus our sense of belonging. As Nicholas Carr, author of The
Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains has succinctly put it in his most recent article
published in The Wall Street Journal entitled “How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds,” our phone
is altogether a combination of “a mailbox, a newspaper, a TV, a radio, a photo album, a public
library and a boisterous party attended by everyone you know [in] a single, small, radiant object”
(Carr, 2017). The phone here is being used as an exemplar vis-à-vis our connective technologies
because of its sheer usability and connectivity that it has become indispensable to our lives;
however, much of the research findings discussed in this essay may also pertain to other
connective machinery.

The Distractibility of the Phone in Face-to-Face Connection

According to psychologists Andrew Przybylski and Netta Weinstein in their article “Can
You Connect With Me Now? How the Presence of Mobile Communication technology

*
Contact: mail@nurfarizahmsedek.com
^
Student research paper in Introduction to Sociology. Lecturer: Alena Soler; asoler@unyp.cz.

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Influences Face-to-Face Conversation Quality,” the smartphone has been documented to inhibit
the formation of interpersonal relation when it is present during face-to-face communications
(Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012). Even though the primary purpose of a connective device that is
fully mobile means that we are able to connect with anyone, anywhere, and at any time, the irony
of it is that the presence of these technological advancements in communication also has an
adverse effect in its influence over our social interactions. Przybylski and Weinstein (2012)
tested this hypothesis in two experiments they conducted and evaluated the extent of how much
the presence of mobile communication devices shape relationship quality. They found that the
elements that contributes to the quality of belonging, such as closeness, connection and
conversation, are negatively affected. This is especially heightened when the conversation
partners are discussing topics that are considered to be personally meaningful (Przybylski &
Weinstein, 2012).
What is particularly interesting to note is that the conversation partners in their
experiment were not even using their phones; their phones were merely present during the
experiment, nevertheless, its effects were still negative for the participants such that it still
“inhibited the development of interpersonal closeness and trust, and reduced the extent to which
individuals felt empathy and understanding from their partners” (Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012,
p. 244). More alarmingly, during the debriefing procedure of the experiments, they also found
that these effects might happen outside of conscious awareness (Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012).
The reason for these effects, according to Przybylski and Weinstein (2012), is because the phone
provides for an unconscious representation of a larger social network; this thereby gives us the
impression that we do not need to be fully present during the face-to-face meeting that is
currently ongoing, perceiving it with less importance, because there is a wider group of people
with whom we may communicate with thanks to this device. Furthermore, Przybylski and
Weinstein (2012) also states that it is possible that we have formed a more enduring association
to our phones, due to its more extensive use in connecting us with the wider social network, such
that it interrupts our face-to-face interactions.

The Distractibility of the Phone in Attentive Communication

Along the same vein, researchers Stothart, Mitchum and Yehnert (2015) have found that
even getting a momentary notification, such as a beep, a vibration or a flash on the screen, causes
“task-irrelevant thoughts” and “mind-wandering” to occur, and “significantly disrupted
performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants did not directly interact
with [it] during the task” (Stothart, Mitchum & Yehnert, 2015, p. 893). Because face-to-face
conversations require our fullest attention in order to create the bonding required for closeness
and connection, having the smartphone around during these sessions is detrimental in developing
a sense of belonging, even though the phone is not being actively used.
More recently, in reference to a study on cognition and the effects of phone use on
attention and memory, Binte Mohd Sedek (2017) cites Adrian Ward, a leading researcher from
the University of Texas in fields of technology, as well as cognitive and social psychologies,
who has studied the effects of connective technologies on our abilities to think and perceive:

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 Earlier this year, Ward (2017), together with colleagues Kristen Duke and Ayelet Gneezy
from the University of California, and Maarten Bos, a behavioral scientist from Disney
Research, designed a study to test the hypothesis that “the mere presence of one’s own
smartphone may occupy limited-capacity cognitive resources, thereby leaving fewer
resources available for other tasks and undercutting cognitive performance” and
thereafter found that “even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention
– as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones – there mere presence of these
devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Moreover, these cognitive costs are highest
for those highest in smartphone dependence” (p. 140). Ward and his colleagues (2017)
reported, in an article entitled “Brain Drain” that as long as our own smartphone is within
easy reach while we are performing cognitively demanding tasks – even if it is faced
down on the table, turned off, or put away in our bags – we are still susceptible to it
dividing our attention because it causes us to give away our already limited available
capacity of cognitive resources in order to suppress our wanting to check it. (Binte Mohd
Sedek, 2017, p. 2)

Furthermore, the article also cites well-documented concerns of the tech insiders themselves
speaking out against the technologies they have helped to create:

Those who have spoken out unfavorably against smartphone usage in terms of its
distractibility constitutes not only scientists but also tech insiders who are themselves the
creators, designers and programmers of the components that have been constructed to
specifically arrest our attention. In the article written for The Guardian, Lewis (2017)
uses a quote spoken by Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google, for its title,
warning that “Our minds can be hijacked.” Algorithms have been coded into apps
installed in the smartphone that have been designed to subconsciously keep user’s
attention for a longer period of time while we are using their platforms, such that we must
deliberately apply more cognitive awareness in order to pull our attention back from
these devices (Harris, 2017). (Binte Mohd Sedek, 2017, p. 2)

In a social setting, particularly in real-time face-to-face conversations, it is not

uncommon to see people engaging with their phones, even when they should be connecting with
each other. This is because, as the preceding research has demonstrated, most users are simply
unaware of the distractibility of their technological devices and the lure it has on their
attentiveness. In fact, it is also thanks to advancements in behavioral, cognitive and social
psychology that has given those in the technology industry an advantage by learning about how
we think and behave, what are the factors that drives our addictive behaviors, and how they can
implicitly manipulate our choices so that we are unconscious in the ways we interact online. We
therefore need to have a stronger awareness when it comes to our offline communications for us
to build a more substantial sense of belonging within our immediate communities.

Fear of Missing Out and Social Media Usage

Another phenomenon that must be discussed with regards to technology and its effects on
our social cognition and sense of belonging is what is known as the “fear or missing out.” It has

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been suggested that the fear of missing out influences decision making and behavior, and it is
closely linked to the use of social media; the way we engage in the social media platforms, such
as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram, causes us to make comparisons on the
lives of others that we have seen or read about on our social feeds to our own lives, which gives
us the sensation that we must keep up with these news items in order to keep up with our own
lives and how we are ourselves perceived to others. Following this hypothesis, researchers
Jessica Abel, Cheryl Buff and Sarah Burr in their 2016 article entitled “Social Media and the
Fear of Missing Out” conducted an experiment that focuses on scale development on the basis of
“inadequacy, irritability, anxiety, and self-esteem” to assess how social media use contributes to
the fear of missing out, and also how this fear in turn influences the substantial and individual
ways how we use social media (Abel, Buff & Burr, 2016).
Abel, Buff and Burr (2016) uses the methodology of self-assessments of their research
subjects in how they rate themselves in terms of three scales: 1. Their “sense of self” whereby it
is an assessment to “assess an individual’s perception of himself or herself”; 2. Their “social
interaction” whereby it is to “assess an individual’s feelings toward interacting with others, their
issues with shyness, and comfort level on talking with other members of a group”; and finally, 3.
Their “social anxiety” whereby it is “a specific focus on anxiety caused by social media usage”
(Abel, Buff & Burr, 2016, p. 41). Their scores were then calculated to find the significance for
determining their “fear of missing out” scores pertaining to their social media usage.
What these researchers have found is that, those with a generally higher level score of
their “fear of missing out” are also more likely to experience higher level of urges to check their
social media accounts across the different platforms for updates (Abel, Buff & Burr, 2016).
However, what is more interesting to note is that the Abel, Buff and Burr (2016) also made the
distinction that the participants’ check for status updates are significant on social media
platforms that are primary used in a personal way – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and MySpace;
they did not find significant difference in the frequency of checking on LinkedIn, a social media
platform that is primarily used for professional purposes. This infers that the participants are
more concerned about being up to date in their social circle when it comes to their interpersonal
connections and not professional affiliations; thus, tying it to a deep-seated emotional motivation
of having a sense of belonging within their friendlier and more intimate social groups.

Where Belonging Resides

A leading research in the field of social work, Brené Brown from the University of
Houston in Texas, has recently published Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging
and the Courage to Stand Alone (Brown, 2017), a book that is apt to come at a time where our
technological devices have taken hold of our cognitive awareness so much so that they handicap
our ability to create meaningful connection and thwart the development of our sense of
belonging. What is more meaningful about Brown’s research that has led to this book is the
emphasis on “standing alone,” which is a 180º turn from the conventional understanding of what
it means to have a sense of belonging. The central message Brown (2017) is asserting in her
book is that true belonging starts with ourselves, in that in order for us to feel a true sense of
belonging, we must first feel that we belong to ourselves, before we seek to find belonging
within our various circles of social associations; we need to first and foremost accept, recognize,
and become comfortable with our own beliefs, values, opinions, thoughts, and feelings.

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 The importance of “standing alone” as a precursor to belonging, according to Brown
(2017), is because humanity have so long attempted to fulfil our need for belonging by seeking
out people who are similar to us in terms of sharing beliefs, values and mindsets, as well as in the
things that we do; however, this has the tendency to also breed animosity on the other extreme
end of the spectrum amongst people who are unlike us, those who do not share our systems of
beliefs and actions. This has been the reasons for so much dissent that has boiled down to an “us-
versus-them” mentality which has led to fatal disputations and wars because, in wanting to create
a sense of belonging to a like-minded group, of a sense of dislike, even hatred, has been
developed for the “other.” She succinctly stated, “Most of us are either making the choice to
protect ourselves from conflict, discomfort, and vulnerability by staying quiet, or picking sides
and in the process slowly and paradoxically adopting the behavior of the people we’re fighting.
Either way, the choices we’re making to protect our beliefs and ourselves are leaving us
disconnected, afraid, and lonely” (Brown, 2017).
Essentially, connection and belonging can only be truly found when we view people as
individuals, who also belong to themselves, rather than seeing them through the lens based on
the assumptions we have made about them through the various groups they belong to. Brown
(2017) talks about the “feedback loop” where these assumptions that we have made about other
groups of people are the very ideas we hold that keep us stuck in disconnection. Quoting Bill
Bishop, an American author, journalist and social commentator, Brown (2017) surmises:

Bishop’s book tells the story of how we’ve geographically, politically, and even
spiritually sorted ourselves into like-minded groups in which we silence dissent,
grow more extreme in our thinking, and consume only facts that support our
beliefs—making it even easier to ignore evidence that our positions are wrong. He
writes, “As a result, we now live in a giant feedback loop, hearing our own
thoughts about what’s right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows
we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the
sermons we hear, and the neighborhoods we live in.” (Brown, 2017)

To belong, therefore, Brown (2017) suggests, through her research, that the path to belonging is
“through the wilderness,” in which she defines the “wilderness” as the territory within ourselves
that is authentic and vulnerable, and that it is through this territory that we then make our
connections with others.
The mention towards authenticity and vulnerability falls back on Brown’s earlier
research, in reference to her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable
Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Brown, 2012) where she indicates that in
order to develop a meaningful connection with anyone, we must do so through being our
authentic and vulnerable selves. This means that “putting ourselves out there means there’s a far
greater risk of getting criticized or feeling hurt;” however, it is only through this process that we
are able to connect and create closeness with another person out of the sharing of difficult
emotions and empathy (Brown, 2012). This is because, Brown (2012) suggests, we live in a
world of scarcity, where we are “never good enough.” This sentiment of “not enough” drives us
to feel an immense amount of, firstly, shame where we have a fear of being ridiculed, secondly,
comparison, where we are constantly thinking about how we compare to another, and thirdly,
disengagement, where we are afraid to take risks and try new things in our relations with another.

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 Conclusion: Belonging in Our Wired World

Bearing this in mind, as well as the above-mentioned studies on technology use and our
interactions relating to it, we can then see that the social construction of our sense of belonging is
not only complex, it is made even more so due to the paradox of connective technologies. On the
one hand, technological advancements in connectivity has allowed us to cast a wider net on our
social circles; however, on the other hand, it has also diminished our ability to create true and
meaningful connections if we are unaware of its effects and unconscious in the way we are using
it. At the same time, however, technology is here to stay and it will even keep developing such
that new applications, media and platforms are created faster than we can study their effects.
Therefore, the more precocious solution is that we need to firstly take a step back by bearing in
mind the fundamental aspects of what true belonging means, and then we must develop coping
strategies on how to navigate the wired world while still gaining the upper hand in maintaining
authenticity and vulnerability in our interpersonal connections.

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 References

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Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live,
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