Chapter 6 - Love and Relationships Online

Chapter Summary

Seeking love online

• In recent times, looking for love online has become increasingly common and acceptable.

Meeting online: where, who and why?

• Now the third most likely way for new couples to meet.
• About half meet through online dating, over a fifth meet through social networking sites and a quarter through online communities.

What motivates people to find romance online?

• Similarity.
• It can be a more discreet option.
• It is an efficient and convenient method of meeting people.
• About 10 per cent of people are shy and find it removes barriers to dating.

Experiences and outcomes

• The number of people trying dating online has increased, as has the number of people who make a date to meet offline.
• Almost half of daters experienced someone misrepresenting themselves.
• Over a quarter, primarily women, felt harassed or uncomfortable.
• The long-term effects of a relationship having started online are mixed, but similar to offline.

Online dating profiles

• The profile photograph is the most important element of a dating profile.
  • Photographs have a halo effect, where liking of a photograph influences the judgement of the profile.
  • Photographs validate claims made in the profile.
• The ‘about me’ text is the second most important for determining attraction and trust.

CMC and its effect on online romance

• A lot is being communicated about a dater through the medium of text in the ‘about me’ section of the profile and in initial messages.
• Cues in the text may be interpreted by different online daters in a number of ways.
• In online dating the speed at which communication becomes intimate can be much faster than offline.

Self-presentation and deception in online dating

• Online daters strive to present themselves both accurately and positively, mediated by their desire to meet face-to-face.
• Daters are considered in how they present themselves, analysing responses and others’ profiles, and adapting their own.
• Deception is widespread – half of daters lie about some aspect of themselves, but they are small lies.
• Honesty is not always successful. More self-disclosure and positive self-disclosure can lead to greater self-presentation success, but more honesty does not.

What makes a dating profile attractive?

• Important qualities include physical attributes, shared similar interests and values, socioeconomic status, personality, honesty and age.
• Homophily, where people tend to like people who are similar to themselves.
• One area where daters prefer dissimilar others is attractiveness, where all daters prefer others more attractive than themselves.

Shifting modalities: moving offline

• Online dating moves quickly, as daters don’t want to waste time getting to know someone online before finding out if there is physical chemistry.
• They want to ensure that the online persona matches the real person.
• Extended online interactions can result in more negative outcomes because hyperpersonal communication can cause idealised impressions to be created. These expectations may not be met in subsequent face-to-face encounters.

Maintaining relationships online

• Some couples find that technology allows them to feel closer to their partner, while others feel that it introduces friction.
• The online disinhibition effect can make it easier for couples to open up and disclose intimate information.
• It can allow them to feel closer by messaging, or because they have a store of the history of their relationship in the form of conversations and images of their partner.
• Initially, Facebook is used as the primary tool for uncertainty reduction.
• There can be significant social pressure to change their Facebook status to ‘in a relationship with . . . ’

Jealousy

• The lack of cues online can lead to problems with a misinterpretation of communications, resulting in jealousy.

Surveillance

• People engage in surveillance of potential, current and ex partners online, but few reach the point where they cause fear in their targets.
• Partner surveillance through social media is not universally negative, if it is done without rumination and with positive self-talk.

Cyber-stalking

• Online surveillance is not always benign.
• Cyber obsessional pursuit (COP) involves using technology-based stalking behaviours to harass someone or demand intimacy from them, becoming cyber stalking when the behaviour is repeated and severe, and likely to cause fear in a reasonable person.
• Those who engage in Facebook harassment are more likely to commit COP.

Infidelity and cyber cheating

• Cyber infidelity can have serious emotional and other negative consequences for relationships, even when they have never moved beyond the virtual domain.

Breaking up

• 17 per cent of people have broken up with someone by CMC and 17 per cent had it happen to them.
• Facebook may have a negative impact on emotional recovery when used to stay in contact with an ex partner after a break-up.