Online Casual Conversations among University Students in the Early Days of the Pandemic: The Emergence of Bonding through Interaction

Abstract

With the global outbreak of COVID-19, how did university students mutually experience a sense of togetherness despite their daily activities moving from physical to online spaces? This paper presents university students’ online casual conversation data collected during the early days of the pandemic. Characteristics of online conversation, communication via screens and webcams, include range of vision that differs from that of face-to-face communication and the corresponding verbal and non-verbal behaviors regarding how to see and to be seen. This paper analyzes how “bonding” (Ide & Hata, 2020) emerged in online spaces by focusing on the actions of looking at others and their spaces through screens and choosing what to show on webcams and how to display it. A sense of togetherness was seen to emerge through joint-gazing, voice resonance about visual resources, and the expansion of communication space through reference to others’ private spaces. Furthermore, social connections among participants were strengthened by sharing and confirming online conversational norms through mutual acts of adjusting and evaluating the way they appear on webcams. The analysis revealed multiple ways in which young people create bonds at the physical, interactional, and sociocultural levels through reciprocal interactions using visual communication resources.