Media Dependence and Relational Maintenance in Interpersonal Relationships

Abstract

This study explored the relationships between dependence on video games and television and relational maintenance strategy use. One hundred and sixty-three male and female undergraduate students completed self-report measures of media dependence and relational maintenance. Results indicate that higher levels of media dependence predicted lower use of all the maintenance strategies, with video game dependence being a stronger predictor than television dependence. The results are discussed in terms of the roles that exposure to antisocial content and media involvement play in explaining the relationship between media dependence and relational maintenance.

Keywords:

• Addiction
• Involvement
• Television
• Video Games

Notes

∗p < .05.

Notes. Respondent sex was coded 1 = female, 2 = male. Relationship type was dummy coded such that results for romantic relationship and friendship should be interpreted relative to the familial relationship. ΔR ² refers to the change in variance accounted for by the addition of video game and television dependence. R ² refers to the variance accounted for by the model, and β refers to the standardized regression coefficient when all predictor variables are included.

df = 5,157.

∗p < .05.

Results for internal consistency indicated that for openness, shared tasks, positivity, advice, and social networks, no error calculated between observed and expected correlations was greater than sampling error. For conflict management, only one error calculated between observed and expected correlations (10%) was greater than sampling error (the difference was .01). For assurances, 10.71% of the errors calculated between observed and expected correlations was greater than sampling error (mean difference was .06). Tests of heterogeneity (parallelism) indicated that 7% of errors calculated between observed and expected correlations was greater than sampling error (mean difference was .04). Furthermore, chi-square values for internal consistency analyses were nonsignificant for 6 of the 7 relational maintenance factors (all but assurances), and chi-square values for parallelism were nonsignificant for all factors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca M. Chory

Rebecca M. Chory (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at West Virginia University. Sara Banfield (M. A., West Virginia University) is an Instructor in the Communication and Languages Department at Raritan Valley Community College. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented as part of the Top 3 Paper Panel to the Mass Communication Interest Group at the annual meeting of the Eastern Communication Association in Philadelphia in April 2006.