Jack Regnier

Maura Cherney

12/13/2017

Communication and Technology

Proxemics is a topic that seems to be ignored in the communication world, and that is

reflected in the studies found on it. If it isn’t clear, there haven’t been many studies produced on

the topic. Two peer-reviewed essays that touch upon the topic deal with reintroducing the idea

of proxemics, while the other deals with comfort levels. Another study found deals more with

the relationship between strangers rather than the idea of proxemics, but is still relevant when it

comes to the application this paper discusses.

The first essay deals with the idea of proxemics, how it isn’t discussed much today, and

why it should be more relevant than it is. The essay reflects on proxemics through a modern day

opera called “Bluebeard’s Castle.” “Bluebeard’s Castle” follows Bluebeard, a king, and Judith,

Bluebeard’s recent wife, in an Adam and Eve like opera. In Bluebeard’s Castle, there are seven

portals. There is only one rule, and that is to never open the seventh portal. Long story short,

Judith gets Bluebeard to open the seventh portal, thus killing the titular character leaving Judith

alive and well. As Judith is trying to convince Blackbeard to open the portals, there is this sort

of dance sequence that reflects the idea of proxemics and how it is used everyday. It starts with

Judith approaching Bluebeard lovingly, begging him to open the portal so that light may come

into his gloomy castle. “He refuses taking physical distance from her. She re-approaches him

and vehemently repeats her request, while professing her love for him” (Sluzki, page 11-12).

Bluebeard stepping away from her is a physical representation that he doesn’t want to open the
portal, but Judith’s reproach shows a genuine love and concern that changes Bluebeard’s heart.

With each portal she asks him to open, this dance continues showing a physical almost

deviousness using distance as a sign of love to get Bluebeard to do something for selfish reasons.

This essay shows the idea of proxemics in practice and suggests that proxemics is more useful

than it is given credit.

In a study of proxemics, 60 high school students were asked to participate in a case

dealing with comfortability and personal space in relation to distance. The study was conducted

as follows: 30 deviant students (students who showed behavior in acting out) and 30 “normal”

students were taken. One by one they were put in the center of a room with tape marks going 1

foot out until 8 feet away in each direction. One of the observers would start at the 8 foot mark

and take a step in one foot at a time. The students were told to inform the observer when they

started to feel uncomfortable. The study found that deviant students had a larger personal space,

which is what they had originally expected. What they didn’t expect, however, was that when

averaging out the data and mapping it out, the shape of the personal space was the same, larger in

the back (5 feet for deviant students and 4 feet for normal students), shorter on the sides and in

the front (3 feet away for deviant students and feet away for normal students). “While deviants

required a greater proxemic area than normals, the groups did not differ in shape, which is a

departure from previous findings” (Newman, 1973, p. 8). This was a piece of information that

was both different than they expected and different from what previous studies have found. This

study shows that people feel more uncomfortable when personal space is invaded in person

because personal space doesn’t really exist online.

 The final study related to the application deals with how strangers interact. The app

being creating, for a quick background, is like a pen pal service that has no geographical

boundaries. A pen pal is someone you write to, can be from one’s home town or from the other

side of the world, to make connections, share experiences, and maybe even tell secrets.

Anyways, this study looks at what makes a person more inclined to participate in a given setting.

Is a person more willing to participate in a group with friends or with strangers? Basically, this

study followed people in an organization. It tracked to see if each member knew someone before

joining the organization, or if they were going in knowing no one. Based on that, they tracked

these members participation in said organization. The study found that people who didn’t really

know anyone coming into it were more engaged in the organization and ended up creating more

ties with others. “​In fact, while forming new social ties in the association does increase

engagement, interestingly, having one's prior friends join the association you belong to actually

d​ecreases your overall engagement with the organization” (Parigi, 2013, p. 7). Even adding

friends to a group can cause less engagement in a group, so most productivity and participation

comes with working with strangers.

In modern day applications, proxemics is very limited. It is used mostly in dating apps

and social media. In dating apps, a person can only meet people in a nearby vicinity. While

short distance makes sense in dating, it puts a huge limit on the people you can meet. As for

social medias, it is used in a similar way. Suggested friends for apps like Facebook are typically

people in a person’s general geographical vicinity. Again, this is very limiting in the amount of

people you can reach out and connect with. What if someone had a friend on the other side of

the world that just got social media? They would have no way of connecting with that person
unless they luckily searched for that person specifically, but even that is a stretch as people don’t

magically know when someone else creates a profile. Also, some people use dating apps or

friend apps to find friends online. With a distance limit, there is a limit on people you can

interact with, and the point of the internet is to be able to extend one’s reach as far as they want.

Also, besides geographical distance, proxemics isn’t used on the internet. These are just a few

problems facing proxemics in apps today.

For the app I am creating, I will be breaking down previous barriers of proxemics. I will

be creating an app that allows the user to create either long or short distance relationships that

can be maintained, similar to a childhood pen pal but more convenient and no age limit. The app

is a cross between Tinder, pen pals, and chat sites. Most people can reflect on a time where they

had a pen pal. Being a little kid, there was always an excitement to see a letter come in from an

anonymous friend. This app will take that excitement and bring it to the modern world.

Basically, you log in to the app, aptly named “Pen Pals”. On the first screen, you would have the

option to login with Facebook, Google, or you can create your own profile. From there, the next

screen will ask you where you want to “explore”, simply meaning where the user would like to

have a pen pal. The user can explore anywhere in the world, breaking previous barriers of

proxemics. Next, it asks if you would need to use an in-app translator, just in case there is a

language barrier. This would change their messages to your given language on your screen, but

their given language will be on their screen. It will also ask the user to list some interests they

have, and the app’s algorithm will find possible pen pals that share similar interests. After that,

pictures will appear, and much like Tinder, the user will swipe right or left on people depending

on similar interests or if the user thinks they could keep a conversation with the other. A user
can have up to five pen pals at a time (so that there is more focus on building the relationships).

There will be tabs for conversation starters, so the first message won’t be awkward. Depending

on the country, there will also be tabs of things that may be offensive or inconsiderate to talk

about, or at least not before the two users are comfortable with each other. Since people are

more likely to participate with strangers, as seen by the Parigi study, this app is a perfect

opportunity to talk about things and make connections with people they may never had. Also,

because there is no personal space online and people feel in control in front of a screen, users

would be more comfortable talking with a stranger on this type of platform, as inferred by the

Deviant Student study. Without the boundaries of geographical proxemics, people are allowed

to expand their social circles to anywhere in the world. This app could potentially get rid of

language, social, and cultural barriers allowing more people to get to know more worldly

traditions and not just the culture they find in their back door. There would also be a sense of

proxemics that could develop both physically and virtually. People start off as strangers on the

app. When they first see each others pictures, they get a little closer in virtual space, which only

becomes closer with a swipe right. Finally their relationship builds, and people become close, in

a sense, through the internet, thus proxemics can be applied to modern technology. Physically,

they can also become closer. When they first start talking, they can physically be as far apart as

possible, but as they grow closer, there may be opportunity to meet in person some day, thus

building a real-world, physical relationship where the distance signifies their growth together.

As a kid, a dream was to meet the person behind the letters, and this could grant the opportunity

to build a relationship with someone behind a screen that could ultimately end in a life-long

friendship.
 Reference Page

Newman, R. C., & Pollack, D. (February 1973). Proxemics in deviant adolescents.​ Journal of

Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 40​(1), 6-8. Retrieved from

https://search.proquest.com/docview/614278140?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:wcdiscovery&acco

untid=26699

Parigi P, State B, Dakhlallah D, Corten R, Cook K (2013) A Community of Strangers: The

Dis-Embedding of Social Ties. 8(7): e67388.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0067388#s6

Sluzki, C. E. (2016). Proxemics in Couple Interactions: Rekindling an Old Optic. ​Family Optics,

55​(1), 7-15. Retrieved from

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=97297fd2-3233-4cac-9ff6-4b

7180cc4779%40sessionmgr4008