Look Who’s Talking: Mediums of Contact Among Mid-to Later-Life Siblings

Abstract

Adult siblings maintain contact and remain close to one another. The current study used participants recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk ( n = 491) to conduct regression analyses examining five methods of contact (in person, telephone, email, texting, and social media) predicting sibling closeness and conflict. Further, two- and three-way interactions assessed the role of sibling dyad composition (e.g., women with a sister and women with a brother). Results suggested that as contact in person, through social media, the telephone, or email increased, sibling closeness increased, while increased contact through email indicated less conflict. Assessing sibling dyad composition suggested as telephone contact increased, sibling closeness increased for all sibling dyads, especially for women with a sister compared to men with a brother. In-person and texting contacts were beneficial for women with a brother. Even in mid- to later-life, siblings connect through synchronous and asynchronous mediums, and this contact appears beneficial for sisters.