As our adult children travel far and wide in pursuit of their own goals, it’s comforting to learn from a new research study that talking to them can reduce their stress (as measured by reductions in cortisol and increases in oxytocin). Girls between 7 and 12 years of age were assessed for cortisol and oxytocin after being asked to give impromptu speeches and solve math problems and receiving either no reassurance from their mother, in-person reassurance from their mother, or reassurance over a telephone from their mother.
Data from Selzer et al.
As you can see from the data, good old-fashioned, in-person contact with Mom (the red line) reduces cortisol faster, but hearing her voice gets you to the same low level one hour later.
This article raised some questions for us relative to our work on loneliness and social media. We have found that in-person interactions with friends and family were negatively correlated with loneliness, but that use of Facebook and telephones were not correlated with loneliness at all. We did not, however, distinguish between time spent actually “talking” on the telephone from time spent texting, which we obviously should do in light of Selzer et al.’s results and the habits of the college students we study. My students complain that they rarely actually use the phone to talk to people anymore, but end up texting instead. It’s possible that a texted “Mom loves you and everything is going to be all right” is not quite the same as hearing her voice say the same words, but it’s still a fair empirical question. It would also be helpful to know more about the relationship between these one-time stress-reducing episodes and pervasive loneliness. So many research questions–so little time.
3 Comments
EspieW-PSY340 · May 14, 2010 at 9:52 am
Ever since I moved out on my own, I have tried to talk with my mother at least once a week. When I moved away, in addition, I tried to see her once a month. When I have a problem, my mother tries to make me laugh and does say, “Everything will be alright.” Texting is okay, but I feel it is not like hearing the person’s voice. Thinking about the difference, it is nice to see a text message, but the feeling I receive with the text is short lived because I feel text messages are less personable. I believe there is a sense of calming or happiness when you hear a loved one’s voice on the phone.
Kelsey · May 16, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I definitely agree that hearing a person’s voice in comparison to communicating via text is much more personable and effective. Now that I am away at school, I am always happy to recieve text messages and facebook comments from my friends and family. However, when I hear their voices or see them in person, I feel significantly more emotionally attatched and engaged in the coversation. For example, my sister and I communicate often through facebook and text messages, but the other day when I heard her voice on the other end of the telephone, I became noticeably in a better mood and emotionally involved.
kjchin · May 18, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I wish I saw this before Mother’s Day, so I could have sent it to my Mom. I definitely agree that talking to someone is much more personable and emotional. I try to call my mom every day, usually when I walk back from class, because Poly Canyon doesn’t get At&t service. So I usually talk to my mom for about 15 minutes every day. I know she really enjoys it, even though I’m not actually there. For my brother, she always says “it would be nice if I would actually hear from him.” Since he rarely ever calls her, he just texts her occasionally. And obviously, that doesn’t have the same effect. I know that my oxytocin definitely rises when I talk to my mom. I really enjoy hearing her voice. It is sad that or society is all about Facebook and texting, we are slowly straying away from increasing oxtocin levels!
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