What's Missing? How Interpersonal Communication Changes During Online Learning

During the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, all communication activities have been carried out mostly through CMC, including online learning that students must experience. This situation brings big changes in the communication process between lecturers and students and vice versa. This paper aims to see how interpersonal communication changes in the online lecture process and what elements of interpersonal communication are lost with technology in online learning. The data collection method in this study was to conduct Focus Group Discussions on Sociology students at the Universitas Negeri Malang. 6 students were involved in the FGD with the criteria for students above the 2019 class who had experienced face-to-face and online lectures. Primary data was obtained through active observation of Sociology Department lecturers. This study indicates that many dimensions of interpersonal communication are missing in online lectures, such as the loss of empathy between students due to the absence of face-to-face communication and miss communication in online lectures, which causes interpersonal communication not to work effectively. Furthermore, Interpersonal communication cannot be established properly if the lecturer does not have high technological skills. It can then affect the spirit of student learning in online lectures. Keywords: higher education, ICT skills, interpersonal communication, online learning