ABSTRACT
In previous work, we came to define interpersonal sociability as the flow of exchanges that people maintain with those to whom they are connected, having three distinct poles: the social network, the interpersonal exchanges themselves, and “the various technical means that are available at a given moment of time and that enable an exchange to happen. These poles both pose constraints on and provide resources for interactions; thus, all three poles shape the form that relational practices take” (Licoppe and Smoreda, 2006: 297). A kind of technological shaping of social relations-highlighted by the definition above-becomes a real theoretical issue for the sociology of communication. Indeed, the role of mediated interactions in overall
interpersonal exchanges is constantly growing (Kim et al., 2007). As technology advances, new patterns of mediated communication emerge and become important enough to be introduced into the analysis of sociability. However, can we claim that the intensification, enlargement, and complexity of contemporary mediated interactions substantially transform the mode of human sociability?
