A communication arts professor at the University of Wisconsin has spent more than two decades studying how people relate to one another through screens, and her findings push back against the idea that digital communication is simply bad for human connection.
According to a report by Phys.org, Catalina Toma began her research into computer-mediated communication in 2004 as a graduate student at Cornell University, at a time when the field was still new. Her early work focused on topics like impressions and deception in online spaces. Since then, the field has expanded dramatically, and so has her research.
Toma is internationally recognized as an expert in online dating, technological interference in relationships, and the impact of social media on well-being. She now teaches a course at UW-Madison called Online Communication and Personal Relationships, held at Vilas Hall. The class is blended, meaning students can attend in person or watch live on their devices.
"Personal relationships are the number one determinant of our well-being and happiness," she told her class.
Toma describes herself as a media psychologist. She defines social media in the broadest possible sense, including Instagram, TikTok, email, text messages, online video calls, and instant messaging. In her view, all of these are forms of computer-mediated communication, and all of them shape how people build and maintain relationships.
She was present at Cornell when Facebook launched, at a time when the platform was limited to Ivy League campuses and consisted largely of creating a profile for friends to view. She watched emoticons and like buttons appear. Each new platform, she has noted, creates new ways for people to interact.
"The study of computer-mediated communication has really ballooned, as it should, because it's now used in organizations. It's used by politicians. It affects societies and the democratic process. I have a tiny sliver of the pie that's really about human connection and human interaction."
The course draws heavily from students' own lives, which Toma says makes it easy to find undergraduates eager to work as research assistants. The topics she covers, from online dating to social media's effect on mental health, are directly relevant to how her students already live.
The broader cultural conversation around technology tends to focus on harm: addiction, comparison, misinformation, and isolation. Toma's research adds a more complicated picture. Her work examines the conditions under which digital communication supports rather than undermines the relationships that matter most to people.
The first session of the course required in-person attendance. Toma noted the meta quality of teaching a class about computer-mediated communication through a blended, partly digital format.
