Mary
Chayko

Mary Chayko is a sociologist studying digital communication and technology. She directs the Digital Communication, Information, and Media (DCIM) and Gender and Media minors at SC&I. She is affiliate faculty for the SC&I Ph.D. program, the Sociology Department, and the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at Rutgers. Chayko is the author of several books on the impact of digital technology on community, society, and the self, including Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life (SAGE Publications) and the best-selling Portable Communities: The Social Dynamics of Online and Mobile Connectedness (SUNY Press). She speaks nationally and internationally on the topic, and publishes widely, including an essay for NBC News marking the 50th anniversary of the internet, What is 50 years spent on the internet worth to humanity?

Mary Chayko is interested in the impact of media and technology on society and humanity. Her current projects seek to understand and explain how social bonds and communities are formed, experienced, and given meaning in the absence of face-to-face contact generally, and through online and mobile technology use in particular. She also studies the consequences of connecting in these ways for individuals, their relationships, and their societies. 

In earlier work, Chayko researched patterns of television use and how they vary by age, the formation of primary groups and primary group ties in mass media use, the ways that virtual reality has influenced our ability to determine what is “really” real, and the intersection of science and culture. Her current and future work remains the exploration and explanation of social connectedness in the modern technological age.