Using E-mail for Personal Relationships

By Bonka Boneva, Robert E. Kraut, D. Frohlich. 2001

351 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Do the gender differences found when men and women maintain personal relationships in person and on the phone also emerge when they use electronic mail? Alternately, does e-mail change these ways of interacting? The authors explore the types of relationships women and men maintain by e-mail, differences in their e-mail use locally and at a distance, and differences in the contents of messages they send. The findings are based on qualitative and quantitative data collected during a 4-year period. These data suggest that using e-mail to communicate with relatives and friends replicates preexisting gender differences. Compared to men, women find e-mail contact with friends and family more gratifying. Women are more likely than men to maintain kin relationships by e-mail. They are more likely than men to use e-mail to keep in touch with people who live far away. Women's messages sent to people far away are more filled with personal content and are more likely to be exchanged in intense burst. The fit between women's expressive styles and the features of e-mail seems to be making it especially easy for women to expand their distant social networks.

Subfields: Communication, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7b9d9a79cac5a3bf4aa9d229dc148a2e4476dd82

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Citations in the corpus

Taking risks when communicating on the Internet: the role of offline social-psychological factors in young people's vulnerability to online risks (2007, result): “We note, however, that empirical research sometimes (Boneva et al. 2001), but not always, supports this claim (Shaw & Grant 2002).”
Exploring Demographic Language Variations to Improve Multilingual Sentiment Analysis in Social Media (2013, background): “Recent studies have focused on exploring demographic language variations in personal email communication, blog posts, and public discussions (Boneva et al., 2001; Mohammad and Yang, 2011; Eisenstein et al., 2010; O’Connor et al., 2010; Bamman et al., 2012).”
Politeness Accommodation in Electronic Mail (2004, neutral): “Recently, several studies have focused on issues of gender (Boneva et al., 2001; Thomson & Murachver, 2001), and emoticons (Walther & D'Addario, 2001) in email interactions.”
Tracking Sentiment in Mail: How Genders Differ on Emotional Axes (2011, background): “Understanding how genders communicate through work-place and personal email (Boneva et al., 2001).”
The Relationship between Internet Activities and Depressive Symptoms in a Sample of College Freshmen (2003, neutral): “12 While not focusing on students, Boneva et al. 13 also found gender differences in computer-mediated communication and Internet usage.”
Gender differences in social network development via mobile phone text messages: A longitudinal study (2005, background): “…to communicate about private matters more than males (Kraut et al., 1998; Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2005), and are more satisfied with communication via PC e-mail, and are more likely to utilize it to build intimate relationships (Boneva et al., 2001; McKenna, Green, & Gleason, 2002).”
A Meta-Analysis of Social Networking Online and Social Capital (2016, background): “Studies of communication have also indicated that male communication tends to center on instrumental purposes, consistent with largegroup bridging functions, whereas female communication is more expressive, which is ideal for bonding (see Boneva et al., 2001).”
Understanding Individual Adoption of Instant Messaging: An Empirical Investigation (2005, background): “…efficient channel for research, entertainment, education, and e-commerce (e.g., Chau et al., 2002; Ives and Jarvenpaa, 1996; Jarvenpaa and Tractinsky, 1999), as well as for interpersonal communication (Boneva et al., 2001; Cumming et al., 2002; Kraut et al., 1999; Kraut, Patterson, et al., 1998).”
PREDICTORS AND CONSEQUENCES OF DIFFERENTIATED PRACTICES ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES (2010, result): “These findings are consistent with earlier work on gender differences in the communicative uses of ICTs (e.g. Weiser 2000; Boneva et al. 2001).”