Adults with High-Functioning Autism and Online Communication

Email, instant messaging, and social networking sites (like Facebook) are common tools used by college students both with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders. These forms of computer-mediated communication, or CMC, would appear to complement some of the characteristics of autism nicely. For example, CMC:

• Removes the need for eye contact
• Reduces pressure to respond quickly
• Is fairly structured and predictable

By removing verbal intonation and nonverbal cues – occasional emoticon notwithstanding – CMC “levels the playing field” for interpretation (or misinterpretation). However, it also removes some forms of feedback and is subject to emerging social norms, such as how quickly to reply to an email from a new acquaintance.

Summary of Research

Social Use of Computer-Mediated Communication by Adults on the Autism Spectrum

As a researcher in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, I wanted to learn from adults on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum about their social communication needs, and how well existing CMC technology addresses those needs. The end goal is to identify opportunities to improve CMC experiences through tools or training. So, last spring I interviewed 16 Pittsburgh-area adults with ASD, and they shared their email inboxes, fan fiction, and MySpace pages with me. We talked about face-to-face social interactions, especially with classmates, co-workers, family, and friends. Then we logged in and they walked me through the online communities and CMC tools they used regularly, and explained how online interactions differed from face-to-face ones.
About half of the adults in the study were actively seeking to build new relationships through many channels, including online dating sites, discussion forums, and chat. For them, CMC was great for initiating interactions. CMC:

• Reduced face-to-face pressure
• Allowed individuals to meet others with shared interests (such as favorite actors or authors), and ground their relationships in those interests
• Provided “pre-packaged” interactions that didn’t require a lot of calculation, (like writing “happy birthday” on a friend’s Facebook wall)

CMC relationships led to tangible benefits for some of the adults in the study: some users found dinner companions, another had a friend to help him with medication reminders when he was going through a hard time.
However, many had trouble maintaining the connections they made online, in part because people would “disappear” after awhile. Without a face-to-face co-presence or a network of mutual friends, these fledgling relationships didn’t always last. Also, participants had trouble:

• Knowing whether new friends were trustworthy
• Deciding how much to disclose to strangers online
• Figuring out whether they were communicating too much or too little with new friends

These are problems for everyone who uses the Internet, but were intensified by issues with perspective-taking and inflexible thinking, common characteristics of autism.
As a result of these interviews, I am working with other researchers in human-computer interaction to improve the design of CMC tools and to develop training modules. We’re building models to make online social norms more explicit – for example, how often young adults typically update their Facebook status, and whether there’s such as thing as “too much” or “too little” – so that anyone using the Internet can see how their own behavior fits into the distribution of others’ behavior. We’re also writing social stories about CMC situations, such as what to say in a profile on an online dating site, or how often to send text messages to a new friend. The answers are ambiguous to everyone, so we’re deploying a national survey to gauge the perspectives of other young adults both with and without autism.
For more information, you can read the research article in its entirety, including lots of quotes from the study participants. Click here: Social Use of Computer-Mediated Communication by Adults on the Autism Spectrum