Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2022
  • Article
  • Frontiers in Digital Health

Social Interactivity in Live Video Experiences Reduces Loneliness

By: Benjamin T. Kaveladze, Robert R. Morris, Rosa Victoria Dimitrova-Gammeltoft, Amit Goldenberg, James J. Gross, Judd Antin, Melissa Sandgren and Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt
  • Format:Electronic
ShareBar

Abstract

Background: Loneliness, especially when chronic, can substantially reduce one's quality of life. However, positive social experiences might help to break cycles of loneliness by promoting more prosocial cognitions and behaviors. Internet-mediated live video communication platforms (e.g. Zoom and Twitch) may offer an engaging and accessible medium to deliver such social experiences to people at scale. Despite these platforms' widespread use, there is a lack of research into how their socially interactive elements affect users' feelings of loneliness and connection.
Objective: We aimed to experimentally evaluate whether socially interactivity in live video experience improves loneliness-related outcomes.
Materials and Methods: We recruited participants from an online survey recruitment platform and assigned half to participate in a socially interactive live video experience with 6–12 strangers and the other half to a non-interactive control experience that was designed to be identical in every way but not socially interactive. Participants completed several baseline self-report measures of psychosocial wellbeing, participated in the hour-long video experience (an entertaining astronomy lesson), and then completed some baseline measures again. Four weeks later, we followed up with participants to evaluate their change in trait loneliness since baseline. We Pre-registered our hypotheses and analysis plan and provide our data, analysis code, and study materials online.
Results: Two hundred and forty-nine participants completed the initial study and met inclusion criteria, 199 of whom also completed the 4-week follow-up. Consistent with our predictions, we found that directly after the more socially interactive experience, participants' feelings of connectedness increased more (p < 0.001), positive affect increased more (p = 0.002), feelings of loneliness decreased more (p < 0.001), social threat decreased more (p = 0.006), and negative affect decreased more (p = 0.003) than they did after the less interactive experience. However, change in trait loneliness between baseline and 4 weeks later did not differ between conditions (p = 0.953).
Conclusions: Including socially interactive components in live video experiences can improve loneliness-related psychosocial outcomes for a short time. Future work should explore leveraging these benefits toward longer-term prosociality. Future work can also identify if the effects we observed generalize across different populations and kinds of online experiences.

Keywords

Lonelines; Social Connection; Internet-mediated Communication; Experiment; Emotions; Well-being; Interpersonal Communication; Internet

Citation

Kaveladze, Benjamin T., Robert R. Morris, Rosa Victoria Dimitrova-Gammeltoft, Amit Goldenberg, James J. Gross, Judd Antin, Melissa Sandgren, and Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt. "Social Interactivity in Live Video Experiences Reduces Loneliness." Frontiers in Digital Health 4:859849 (2022).
  • Read Now

About The Author

Amit Goldenberg

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • January 10, 2023
    • Harvard Business Review (website)

    Managing Your Team’s Emotional Dynamic

    By: Amit Goldenberg
    • October 2022
    • Nature Human Behaviour

    Amplification in the Evaluation of Multiple Emotional Expressions over Time

    By: Amit Goldenberg, Jonas Schöne, Zi Huang, Timothy D. Sweeny, Desmond C. Ong, Timothy Brady, Maria M. Robinson, David Levari, Jamil Zaki and James J. Gross
    • August 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Atlanta Ransomware Attack (B)

    By: Amit Goldenberg and Julian Zlatev
More from the Authors
  • Managing Your Team’s Emotional Dynamic By: Amit Goldenberg
  • Amplification in the Evaluation of Multiple Emotional Expressions over Time By: Amit Goldenberg, Jonas Schöne, Zi Huang, Timothy D. Sweeny, Desmond C. Ong, Timothy Brady, Maria M. Robinson, David Levari, Jamil Zaki and James J. Gross
  • Atlanta Ransomware Attack (B) By: Amit Goldenberg and Julian Zlatev
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College