Physical items are often taken for granted in mediated communication between grandparents (GP) and young grandchildren (GC). This article puts “constitutive nonhumans” at the center of inquiry to understand the potential of physical items and communication technologies to communicate over distance. The notion of phaticity operationalizes the role of constitutive nonhumans to establish and maintain contact over distance, which might have pleasurable or unpleasurable outcomes. A relational view on agency supports the entanglement of humans and nonhumans when they cooperate to communicate over distance. The article reports on a two-phase qualitative study that was conducted in two European countries with 10 GP (aged 60–75 years) and 10 GC (aged 6–11 years). The results identify how the entanglement between constitutive nonhumans conflates emotional connection and contact. Furthermore, the results suggest that the condition of familiarity can direct contact to pleasant or unpleasant outcomes that might differ across mediated and co-located communication.
AlvessonMKärremanD (2011) Qualitative Research and Theory Development: Mystery as Method. London: Sage.
2.
AmesMGGoJKayeJ, et al. (2010) Making love in the network closet: the benefits and work of family videochat. In: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work, Savannah, GA, 6–10 February, pp. 145–154. New York: ACM.
3.
AnsellA (2017) Democracy is a blessing: phatic ritual and the public sphere in Northeast Brazil. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology27(1): 22–39.
4.
BaharinHKhalidiS (2015) Fyro: a symbolic-based phatic technology. In: Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Australian special interest group for computer human interaction, Parkville, VIC, 7–10 December, pp. 304–308. New York: ACM.
5.
BaldassarL (2008) Missing kin and longing to be together: emotions and the construction of co-presence in transnational relationships. Journal of Intercultural Studies29(3): 247–266. DOI: 10.1080/07256860802169196.
6.
BanksJDe GraafM (2020) Toward an agent-agnostic transmission model: synthesizing anthropocentric and technocentric paradigms in communication. Human-Machine Communication1(1): 19–36.
7.
BaradK (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
8.
BunzM (2019) The force of communication. In: BialskiPBruntonFBunzM (eds) Communication (In Search of Media). Lüneburg: Meson Press, pp. 51–92.
9.
ChattingDKirkDSYurmanP, et al. (2015) Designing for family phatic communication: a design critique approach. In: Proceedings of the 2015 British HCI conference, Lincoln, 13–17 July, pp. 175–183. New York: ACM.
10.
CouplandJCouplandNRobinsonJD (1992) “How are you?”: negotiating phatic communion. Language in Society21(2): 207–230.
11.
DrewLMSilversteinM (2007) Grandparents’ psychological well-being after loss of contact with their grandchildren. Journal of Family Psychology21(3): 372–379.
12.
DurantiA (1997) Universal and culture-specific properties of greetings. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology7(1): 63–97.
13.
ElyacharJ (2010) Phatic labor, infrastructure and the question of empowerment in Cairo. American Ethnologist37(3): 452–464.
14.
ForghaniANeustaedterC (2014) The routines and needs of grandparents and parents for grandparent-grandchild conversations over distance. In: CHI ’14: Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems, Toronto, ON, Canada, 26 April–1 May, pp. 4177–4186. New York: ACM.
15.
FuchsbergerVBeuthelJMBentegeacP, et al. (2021) Grandparents and grandchildren meeting online: the role of material things in remote settings. In: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems, Yokohama, Japan, 8–13 May, pp. 1–14. New York: ACM.
16.
GaverBBoucherAPenningtonS, et al. (2004) Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty. Interactions11(5): 53–56.
17.
GaverBDunneTPacentiE (1999) Design: cultural probes. Interactions6(1): 21–29.
18.
GibbsMRVetereFBunyanM, et al. (2005) SynchroMate: a phatic technology for mediating intimacy. In: Proceedings of the 2005 conference on designing for user experience, San Francisco, CA, 3–5 November, pp. 2–6. New York: ACM.
19.
HarperRWatsonRLicoppeC (2017) Interpersonal video communication as a site of human sociality: a special issue of Pragmatics. Pragmatics27(3): 301–318.
20.
HeiselbergMH (2017) Fighting for the family: overcoming distances in time and space. Critical Military Studies3(1): 69–86. DOI: 10.1080/23337486.2016.1231986.
21.
HolladaySJSeipkeHL (2007) Communication between grandparents and grandchildren in geographically separated relationships. Communication Studies58(3): 281–297.
22.
Howard-PayneL (2016) Glaser or Strauss? Considerations for selecting a grounded theory study. South African Journal of Psychology46(1): 50–62. DOI: 10.1177/0081246315593071.
23.
JacksonAYMazzeiLA (2012) Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research: Viewing Data Across Multiple Perspectives. London: Routledge.
24.
JakobsonR (1960) Concluding statement: linguistics and politics. In: SebeokTA (ed.) Style in Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 350–377.
25.
JerslevAMortensenM (2016) What is the self in the celebrity selfie? Celebrification, phatic communication and performativity. Celebrity Studies7(2): 249–263.
26.
KellyC (2015) “Let’s do some jumping together”: intergenerational participation in the use of remote technology to co-construct social relations over distance. Journal of Early Childhood Research13(1): 29–46.
27.
KimCWNamT-J (2009) Talkative cushion: a phatic audio device to support family communication. In: CHI ’09 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems, Boston, MA, 4–9 April, pp. 2631–2634. New York: ACM.
28.
KofoedJLarsenMC (2016) A snap of intimacy: photo-sharing practices among young people on social media. First Monday21(11). DOI: 10.5210/fm.v21i11.6905.
29.
LicoppeC (2004) “Connected” presence: the emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communication technoscape. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space22(1): 135–156.
30.
LouVWQLuNXuL, et al. (2013) Grandparent–grandchild family capital and self-rated health of older rural Chinese adults: the role of the grandparent–parent relationship. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B68(4): 599–608.
31.
MalinowskiB (1923) The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In: OgdenCKRichardsIA (eds) The Meaning of Meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 296–336.
TaipaleS (2019) The big meaning of small messages. In: TaipaleS (ed.) Intergenerational Connections in Digital Families. Cham: Springer, pp. 87–101.
40.
VetereFSmithJGibbsM (2009) Phatic interactions: being aware and feeling connected. In: MarkopoulosPDe RuyterBMackayW (eds) Awareness Systems: Advances in Theory, Methodology and Design. London: Springer, pp. 173–186.
41.
VutborgRKjeldskovJPedellS, et al. (2010) Family storytelling for grandparents and grandchildren living apart. In: Nordichi ’10: Proceedings of the 6th Nordic conference on human-computer interaction extending boundaries, Reykjavík, 16–20 October, pp. 531–540. New York: ACM.
42.
WoodwardS (2020) Material Methods: Researching and Thinking with Things. London: Sage.
43.
ZouinarMVelkovskaJ (2017) Talking about things: image-based topical talk and intimacy in video-mediated family communication. Pragmatics27(3): 387–418.
44.
ZuckermanC (2016) Phatic violence? Gambling and the arts of distraction in Laos. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology26(3): 294–314.
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
