Free Smileys Against Loneliness?

(freedigitalphotos.net) image creator Marcus74id

In a study conducted about online communication as opposed to face-to-face communication and its effect on loneliness, participants reported an increase of mood loneliness after chatting online. The level of mood loneliness after online chat was higher than that in face-to-face communication. For people with high trait loneliness, the mood loneliness increase in the computer-mediated communication condition was significantly higher than in the face-to-face communication condition. What are these 2 kinds of loneliness? What is loneliness and how can we help get rid of it, and substitute it with a feeling of content, belonging and love?

Loneliness is a subjective experience in which the individual’s relationships are fewer or less satisfying than desired. Loneliness is divided in two forms, the chronic loneliness (otherwise known as trait loneliness) and the mood loneliness.

Trait loneliness is when a person fails to establish satisfactory personal relationships with others for two or more consecutive years, reflecting "long-term cognitive and behavioral deficits in relating to other people."

Mood loneliness refers to the everyday kind of feeling of loneliness, the periodic passing mood that usually disappears as soon as someone comes to talk with us."

While mood loneliness typically comes from short-term, temporary external events, chronic loneliness is attributed to such stable personality traits as introversion, shyness, and low self-esteem. Active strategies such as talking to friends alleviate mood loneliness effectively. Furthermore, mood loneliness is considered to be more of a state characteristic while chronic loneliness is a trait factor, and can be part of the personality.

Participants taking part in a research, done by participants chatting online with or without the use of smileys, reported an increase of mood loneliness after chatting online. The level of mood loneliness after online chat was higher than that in face-to-face communication, which is why smileys can help with self expression, projecting non-verbal messages and feelings in a clearer, more understandable way than by merely using words. For participants with trait loneliness, the increase of the feeling of loneliness was higher than for those with mood loneliness.

The research was done by participants chatting with strangers, and would have yielded much different results if they were to communicate with loved ones or friends. If you want to be able to communicate more effectively with a smaller chance to be affected by mood loneliness after the mediated communication, the best way is to download free smileys or use text-based emoticons and try to express you innermost feelings with the combinations of smileys and words. Introverted and shy people can actually profit from the fact they don’t have to show their feelings directly by their face expressions and body language, but they can do this more subtly with graphic images expressing emotions and states of mind. Free smileys can help communication and therefore they can help relieve the feeling of loneliness more effectively than simple text-based communication.

The research was only focusing on the short term effects of mediated-communication and has no insight into the long term effects.