Face-to-face interaction

Face-to-face interaction (less often, face-to-face communication or face-to-face discourse) is a concept in sociology, linguistics, media and communication studies describing social interaction carried out without any mediating technology. Sociologist Erving Goffman in his classic 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life defined face-to-face interaction as "the reciprocal influence of individuals upon one another's actions when in one another's immediate physical presence". Linguist Mary Ritchie Key defined research on face-to-face interaction as one "aimed at discovering, documenting and describing regularities in the actions observable in actual interactions".

The concept of face-to-face interaction has been of interest to scholars since at least the early 20th century. One of the earliest social science scholars to analyze this type of interaction was sociologist Georg Simmel, who in his 1908 book observed that sensory organs play an important role in interaction, discussing examples of human behavior such as an eye contact. His insights were soon developed by others, including Charles Cooley and George Herbert Mead. Their theories became known as symbolic interactionism. By the mid-20th century there was already a sizable scholarly literature on various aspects of face-to-face interaction. Works on this topic have been published by scholars such as Erving Goffman and Eliot Chapple.

Face to face interaction is one of the basic elements of the social system, forming a significant part of individual socialization and experience gaining throughout one's lifetime. Similarly it is also central to the organization and development of various groups and organizations composed of those individuals.

Study of face-to-face interaction is concerned with issues such as its organization, rules, and strategy. Face to face communication could easily be interrupted or avoided by just pulling out a cell phone or electronic device. When it comes to communication and understanding one another fully 93% is non-verbal and body language and 7% is written. (Tardanico) According to research studies show that there are an estimated total of over 300 million cell phones users in the United States. (Lopez-Rosenfeld) Owning a cell phone becomes a distraction in everyday life whether if you get a phone call, text message, e-mail, etc. Any alert in general is a distraction because of the settings that you can customize.

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