Attitudes and Practices Regarding Relationship Formation on the Internet
Jessic Donn, Richard Sherman, Christian End, Egon
Kraan, J. Campbell,
Zacharary Birchmeier, Jaime Klausner, & Mick Rakauskas
Miami University
Presented to APA, San Francisco, August 2001
Introduction
Researchers have tended to think of computer-mediated communication, or CMC, as impersonal, making it a more task-oriented medium (e.g., Dubrovsky, cited in Walther, 1996). More recently, researchers and the general population are coming to realize the impact that the Internet is having on community and interpersonal relationships. While studies conclude that Internet use causes declines in social support and psychological well being (Kraut et al., 1998) and the breakup of community (Jones, 1995), few studies have focused on the kinds of relationships and friendships that are formed through Internet use (Nice & Katzev, 1998; Parks & Floyd, 1996; Parks & Roberts, 1998). Besides maintaining existing social ties, Internet users do rely on the medium to create new relationships as well. As people spend more time on-line, it is likely that they will use this new medium for tasks such as meeting potential dates and mates. We conducted two studies to examine young adults’ attitudes and practices about using the Internet to facilitate the formation of intimate relationships.
Method
In the first study we interviewed 235 undergraduates (140 women, 94 men) and 76 Ph.D. students (47 women, 29 men) about their attitudes toward and actual use of the Internet in forming relationships. In the second study a sample of 40 undergraduates (20 women, 20 men) explored actual exemplars of matchmaking sites and then answered surveys about their impressions of the sites. Twenty-eight additional undergraduates (18 women, 10 men) completed similar surveys about their impressions of matchmaking sites after having read a very brief description of what the sites consist of.
Results
In study 1, greater proportions of graduate students than undergraduate students reported meeting someone in person whom they had first met on the Internet, p<.05, and had both thought about or taken steps to meet a friend or mate on the Internet, p<.01. Upon averaging responses to a set of questions regarding attitudes about forming relationships on the Internet to create an overall positivity rating, graduate students expressed more positive views toward using the Internet to form relationships than did undergraduates, p<.001. While both samples expressed concern about being able to trust people online, undergraduates agreed significantly more than graduate students that they would worry that people on the Internet were lying to them, p<.01.
In study 2, respondents indicated concern about not being able to see facial expressions nor judge physical attractiveness online. Participants did not agree with ideas that might explain why meeting online would be advantageous, including being able to form relationships faster and find it easier to share personal information with others online. While both the control and view groups expressed serious concern about people lying online, these concerns appear to have been mediated somewhat by viewing the sites, p<.01. Additionally, the control group reported more negative overall impressions of the sites than did the exposure group, (p<.001) whose ratings did not significantly differ from neutral (p=.5).
Conclusions
We have identified several possible explanations for graduate students’ greater acceptance of forming relationships on the Internet. Graduate students, being older and therefore closer to the age at which many people marry, may have greater empathy for the desire to meet people, and may also have difficulty in doing so through traditional means, and so are more open to using other methods. A second possible explanation of our findings in Study 1 is that graduate students may already be somewhat accustomed to using the Internet for other purposes, such as making professional contacts and doing research.
Concern about the lack of visual cues, such as facial expressions, was greater than expected; since college students, in the "Net-Generation," are presumably accustomed to using email to maintain relationships, we expected that they would have learned to include and read other kinds of cues. Perhaps this is an unconscious process and people believe they would not be able to "read" the situation without seeing another’s face and body. Additionally, the strength of the concern about people lying on this type of site may be a reaction to media stories, or it may be rooted in beliefs about the Internet as a whole; we are repeatedly urged to be cautious about trusting information garnered from the Internet due to the lack of regulation of what is published online.
References
Jones, S.G. (1995). Understanding community in the information age. In Cybersociety. (pp. 10-35). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., & Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet Paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 53, 1017-1031.
Nice, M.L., & Katzev, R. (1998). Internet romance: The frequency and nature of romantic on-line relationships. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 1, 217-223.
Parks, M.R. & Floyd, K. (1996a). Making friends in cyberspace. Journal of Communication, 46, 80-97.
Parks, M.R. & Roberts, L.D. (1998). ‘Making MOOsic’: The development of personal relationships on line and a comparison to their off-line counterparts. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15, 517-537.
Walther, J.B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23, 3-43.
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