Social interaction refers to the exchange of information, emotions, and behaviors between individuals, groups, or society. This can take place through face-to-face communication, nonverbal cues, and communication technologies. It helps to build and maintain relationships, establish social norms, and shape individual and group identities.
The nature of social interaction is shaped by social norms, cultural values, and individual personalities, and it plays a critical role in shaping personal relationships, building communities, and influencing individual behavior. It encompasses a wide range of behaviors and interactions, including face-to-face conversations, nonverbal communication, online communication, and group dynamics.
Social interaction is the foundation of the entire social order. Social interaction produces social groups. There is also interaction between animals and birds. All social processes, structures, social groups, and functions are built on it. Interaction is the doorway to knowledge in sociology.
The most basic form of social interaction, exchange, occurs when people interact with one another in order to receive some sort of reward. Most people are assumed to engage in social behaviors because they benefit from them in some way. We work for monetary compensation. We make friends with people from whom we believe we can benefit emotionally, financially, or physically. Most people will not associate with people who will not benefit them in some way.
However, in today’s society, we can also consider technologically mediated social encounters such as texting, skyping, or messaging. In terms of the various levels of analysis in sociology—micro, meso, macro, and global—social interaction is generally approached at the micro-level, where the structures and social scripts, the pre-established patterns of behavior that people are expected to follow in specific social situations, that govern the relationship between specific individuals, can be examined. However, as the sociological study of emotions demonstrates, macro-level phenomena such as gender inequality and historical transformations have an impact on micro-level processes in everyday life.
