This study looked closely, turn by turn, at two months of recorded home video calls by six young couples in distance relationships in the Northeastern USA. It examined how these couples dealt with distortions, meaning choppy, frozen or blurry sound and picture.
Six couplesSix self-selected couples in distance relationships in the Northeastern USA, all under 21 and college-educated.
Two months of callsEach couple video called at home at least once a week, for 20 minutes or more, with no set tasks.
Every call recordedAn automatic remote recording system captured every call, between 5 and 11 calls per couple.
145 cases collectedAn earlier report on this project collected 145 cases of couples coping with distorted sound or picture.
Close analysisTurn by turn study of how couples repaired talk or remarked on glitches, focused on the two couples with the most varied glitches.
BWhat the study found
Repairing glitchesrepair means fixing trouble hearing or seeing within the talk
•In these calls, listeners flagged missed words and speakers simply said them again.Speakers could not hear their own distorted sound, so the listener had to signal trouble. In straightforward cases, the speaker repeated the words without mentioning the technology.
•One speaker asked whether the call had cut out, to tell mishearing from objection.The speaker had proposed that a friend share a hotel room on a trip. The video call gave a reason and a way to check whether the listener had missed the words or objected.
•In these calls, couples let frozen gestures pass unless a gesture mattered to the relationship.Listeners often did not realise they had missed a gesture. Speakers checked only when a meaningful gesture, such as a wink softening a tease, got no response.
Using glitchesas cover for play and closeness
•One partner used a frozen picture as cover for an intimate tease.During frozen video, one partner claimed to have thrown a blown kiss in the garbage, an action the other could not have seen. The tease helped close the call.
•A blurry picture sparked one partner's playful parody, which showed closeness.Blur and the camera's fixed view set off an extended ventriloquist parody of a voice from off screen. It let one partner show closeness without staging a serious intimate moment.
•In these calls, couples sometimes folded glitches into how they conducted their relationship.The resources these couples used went beyond the designed, working features of video calling. The study concludes that technology framed what the couples could do but did not decide it.
CKey takeaway
Technical glitches in video calls can become resources for intimacy and play. In technologized interaction, technology frames what people can do in talk without determining it.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
Video calling is now a realistic option for couples in distance relationships. This paper explores whether audio/video distortions block intimate relational talk. From a naturalistic two-month trial of couples trying video calling to maintain their distance relationships, it is found that couples can opportunistically use audio/video distortions as a relational resource rather than simply treating them as a blocking or outside of relational talk. First, technological mediation can be treated as relevant to disambiguating whether the repair involves simple content repetition or a more complex relational issue. Second, distortions can be treated as resources for relational parody and teasing. It is argued that the opportunistic use of distortions as a relational resource extends Hutchby's (2001b) notion of technologized interaction, in which technology frames but does not determine social action. Rather than proposing yet another model of communication that includes more detail about noise as deviance that must be remedied, or taking an undifferentiated approach to distortion as "trouble," the technologized interaction approach broadens our conceptions of online relationships as involving the use of technological features to a more holistic sense of technological mediation being part and parcel of maintaining online relationships.
Research brief
By Sean Rintel.
Takeaway: Long-distance couples can turn audio and video glitches into intimacy. In 'technologized interaction', technology frames but doesn't determine talk, so choppy sound or frozen video became cover for playful teasing. Glitches are not simply failures but part of how couples conduct their relationships through technology.
Why this matters
What was known
Research on audio/video distortion in video calling has mostly measured perceptions and task effects, and has said little about how people manage distortions moment by moment. poor quality video can lead to less fluent speech (Monk & Watts, 1995), increased caution (Jackson, et al., 2000), and make it harder to detect lying (Horn, Karasik & Olsen, 2002)(§Video Calling and Operational Distortions, p. 5)
What this paper adds
Rather than measuring how distortions affect perception or task performance, we analyse naturally recorded calls moment by moment, treating distortions as part of what video calling affords and constrains, not as noise to be removed. This paper contributes to this body of research on practices of mediated intimacy in video calling by considering not the features of video calling, but users' management of its failings.(§Video Calling in Relational Contexts, p. 5)
Who it matters to
Designers of communication technology, communication technology researchers, and people introducing video into settings such as telehealth. For technology designers there are several intertwined lessons about communicative separability and holism.(§Conclusion, p. 17)
Research question
Do audio/video distortions block intimate relational talk in long-distance couples' video calls?
Method and data
Design
Ethnomethodological study of naturally occurring video calls, using conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis of telling cases.
Setting
Couples in distance relationships in the Northeastern USA were given webcams and video calling software and asked to video call at home for two months, at least 20 minutes once a week, with no tasks. An automatic remote recording system captured all calls.
Participants / data
Six self-selected couples: native English speakers, under 21, college-educated and primarily white. Each couple had between 5 and 11 calls. 145 cases of coping with distortions were collected.
Duration
Two months.
Analysis
Close sequential analysis of content-oriented remedies and non-remedial accounts, concentrating on the two couples who experienced the most variety of distortions.
Findings
Most missed words were simply repeated. In six long-distance couples' recorded home video calls, couples sometimes repaired the content of distorted audio rather than adjusting the technology. Most such repairs were straightforward. The listener signalled a problem and the speaker repeated what they had said, without mentioning the technology. #
“Since speakers could not hear their own distorted sound, hearers had to alert speakers to the need to repair.”
Blaming the connection can rule out a relational problem. Talk could be relationally sensitive, such as proposing that a friend share a hotel room on a trip. Then a speaker could ask whether the call had cut out, to tell whether the listener had simply missed the words or objected to them. #
“The fact that the conversation was technologically mediated is both the reason and the resource for this disambiguation.”
Frozen gestures were usually let pass. Couples mostly let distorted or frozen gestures and expressions pass, and listeners often did not realise they had missed anything. Visual content was repaired only when it carried relational meaning, such as a wink meant to soften a tease, and then by the person who made it: #
“Speakers, on the other hand, knew that they had performed a visual action (such as a gesture or facial expression), found recipients unresponsive to that visual action, checked on its reception”
A frozen screen became cover for a tease. Frozen video let one partner claim an action the other could not have seen (throwing a blown kiss in the garbage), and so turn a repair into an intimate tease that helped close the call. #
“The gesture is unlikely to have actually physically occurred, but because of the value that the couple ascribes to blowing and catching kisses, this claim is a distinct relational tease.”
Blurriness sparked a parody. A blurry picture, combined with the camera's fixed field of view, sparked an extended ventriloquism parody of an off-screen voice, letting one partner show closeness playfully without staging a serious moment of intimacy. #
“sexual parody involving one's interlocutor certainly proposes a high level of relational closeness”
Failures can be resources too. Across these cases, the resources couples used to conduct their relationship went beyond the designed, working features of video calling. Our conclusion: #
“couples in long-distance relationships may choose to treat audio/video distortions as not mere barriers to their relationship but rather as bound up with how technological mediation plays a role in enacting their relationship”
Questions this paper answers
Do glitches in video calls get in the way of intimate conversation?
Why does video calling change who notices a problem first?
Because only the listener experiences a distortion. Speakers cannot hear their own garbled sound or see their own frozen image. So listeners must flag missed words, while speakers notice a missed gesture only when the response they expected does not come. (See §Repair of audio distortions., p. 9; §Repair of video distortions., p. 10.)
Do people on video calls notice when the video freezes?
Often they did not treat it as relevant. Listeners responded to the last words they heard, and lost gestures usually went unremarked. Couples let most visual distortion pass and went back to it only when a gesture mattered to the relationship. (See §Repair of video distortions., p. 10.)
Is a working audio link more important than video?
Designers should consider how each transmission channel relates to communicative tasks and let each degrade gracefully. each transmission channel should gracefully degrade in a hierarchy of likely communicative task requirements(§Conclusion, p. 17)
Rather than second-guessing users, designers should give them ways to account for what channels are doing and to act on their own choices.
In settings such as telehealth, device design, training and consultation scripts should build in recognition of mediation as relevant, rather than hoping the technology is transparent.
Categories such as trouble, disruption or failure should be applied carefully in technology research. categories such as "trouble," "disruption," or "failure" need to be very carefully applied(§Conclusion, p. 16)
Limitations
The approach is limited to illustrative explanations of micro-level social order and cannot speak to generalisable regularities, relationship types or effects on adoption. Clearly this paper's approach is limited to illustrative explanations of micro-level social order.(§Conclusion, p. 17)
The six couples were a narrow demographic, not representative of the US population.
The recording system joined as a third party, so it could not analyse latency or asymmetry at each end, and it did not capture whole screens or talk in other media.
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Concepts
Audio/video distortions
Operational problems in consumer video calling, caused by limited Internet connections, that degrade sound and picture. Audio and video can be choppy, clipped, muffled, missing, lagged, blurry, frozen, or desynchronized.(§The Next Best Thing to Being There?, p. 4)
Technologized interaction
Hutchby's notion, which this paper extends: participants enact social action that treats the constraints of technology as a framing but not determining social action(§Operational distortions within the frame of affordances and constraints., p. 6)
Repair
How participants deal with troubles of speaking, hearing and understanding within the flow of talk. Video calling changes who notices first: Since only recipients have direct access to the experience of distortion, recipients, not speakers, have first access to repair initiation.(§The Ethnomethodological Approach to Repairs in Co-Present and Video Calling Interaction, p. 7)
Affordances and constraints
The material properties of technology that enable or limit action. Our argument: audio/video distortions are a fundamental part of the experience of video calling - at least at present - and thus should be considered within the frame of affordances and constraints(§Operational distortions within the frame of affordances and constraints., p. 6)
How to cite
Sean Rintel. 2013. Video Calling in Long-Distance Relationships: The Opportunistic use of Audio/Video Distortions as a Relational Resource. The Electronic Journal of Communication / La Revue Electronic de Communication (EJC/REC) 23 (1&2).
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@article{rintel2013video,
author = {Rintel, Sean},
title = {Video Calling in Long-Distance Relationships: The Opportunistic use of Audio/Video Distortions as a Relational Resource},
year = {2013},
month = {June},
url = {https://seanrintel.com/publications/video-calling-in-long-distance-relationships-the-opportunistic-use-of-audiovideo-distortions-as-a-relational-resource.html},
journal = {The Electronic Journal of Communication / La Revue Electronic de Communication (EJC/REC)},
volume = {23},
number = {1&2},
note = {Rintel, S. (2013). Video Calling in Long-Distance Relationships: The Opportunistic use of Audio/Video Distortions as a Relational Resource. The Electronic Journal of Communication / La Revue Electronic de Communication (EJC/REC) Special issue on Videoconferencing in Practice: 21st Century Challenges, 23 (1&2) Online version is free and includes video (use Publisher URL)},
}