Online interactions are becoming more commonplace, especially after the Covid pandemic led to lockdowns and restrictions worldwide. People have turned to the internet for socialization, entertainment, education, work, shopping, dating, and even romance. As a result, there has been an increase in digital communication that involves various aspects of human interaction, including emotional trust. This paper will explore how online interactions influence emotional trust between individuals and how they differ from face-to-face encounters.
Emotional trust is crucial in establishing strong relationships and building healthy connections between people. It refers to the confidence in another person's intentions and actions based on their feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. Emotional trust can be developed through verbal and nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, body language, eye contact, voice tone, and touch.
This paper will examine how these cues are communicated differently online compared to in real life.
In online interactions, emotional trust is built through textual and visual communication. Textual communication refers to written messages sent via chat or email, while visual communication includes video calls, audio recordings, and pictures. In both cases, the sender must use specific language, gestures, and symbols to convey emotions.
Emoticons, emojis, and GIFs can be used to express happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, love, or disgust. These visual cues can help build emotional trust by showing the receiver that the sender is genuine and cares about them.
Unlike face-to-face encounters, online interactions lack physical proximity, which makes it difficult to read subtle social cues like body language and facial expressions. As a result, some individuals may find it challenging to form emotional trust online because they cannot see the other person's facial expressions or hear their tone of voice. This can lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings that undermine the relationship.
Online interactions often involve impersonal exchanges where individuals do not know each other well enough to establish emotional trust. Unlike face-to-face interactions, people in virtual spaces can easily hide behind anonymity and create false identities. Thus, there is a higher risk of deception and manipulation in online interactions than in real life. This can damage relationships and erode trust, particularly when individuals expect too much from their partners without proper foundation.
Online interactions also allow for more time and space to think before responding, leading to longer delays between messages. While this can prevent hasty decisions based on impulsive reactions, it can also cause frustration and confusion if one party expects immediate responses.
Online communication is asynchronous, meaning both parties do not interact simultaneously. This delay can make it harder to gauge the other person's mood, feelings, and intentions, creating uncertainty and suspicion.
Online interactions influence emotional trust differently than face-to-face encounters. The lack of nonverbal cues, potential deception, and delayed responses can all affect the establishment of emotional trust between individuals.
Visual communication through textual and visual media can help build emotional trust by expressing genuineness and caring. Online interactions are not inherently bad for building emotional trust; they just require different strategies and approaches to ensure healthy connections.
How do online interactions influence emotional trust?
Online interactions are likely to create a false sense of emotional trust by providing limited access to nonverbal cues that convey intentions and credibility (Gonzalez & Hancock, 2018). In addition, online communication has unique challenges that may lead to misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and discrepancies between what is said and how it is perceived (Baym, 2010).