Virtual Relationships

• Virtual relationships are becoming more common, and psychologists are interested in understanding why intimacy seems to develop stronger and sooner in virtual relationships than in real life.
• One explanation for the strength of intimacy in virtual relationships is the absence of gating mechanisms, which are factors that in real life would tend to limit interactions with certain people.
• These barriers could be the level of physical attractiveness of the person, speech deficits, age group, or being from a different social or ethnic background.
• Online, these gates cannot be put up, resulting in a reduction of inhibition and potentially leading to disclosures that would not normally be made in real life.
• The reduced Q theory suggests that in day-to-day life, we tend to rely on nonverbal communication, such as facial expressions, to understand the meaning of what another person is saying.
• This reliance on nonverbal communication can lead to people reading too much into what's been typed, resulting in behaviors that are common online, such as internet trolls.
• Deindividuation is a process where an individual loses a sense of themselves as an individual, resulting in a reduction of personal responsibility and inhibition.
• This lack of normal distance can lead to behaviors that are common online, such as internet trolls.
• The hyper personal model suggests that when communicating online, you have more control over the image you present to the other person, which can lead to hyper dishonesty or hyper honesty.
• There are cultural differences in the effects of social interaction and relationships, for example, opposite to Westerners, Koreans are seen to show less trust when there's more disclosure in virtual relationships.
• 53% of people agree that online dating allows people to find a bad match for themselves because they can get to know a lot more people.
• After two years, 70% of relationships formed online are still going, compared to only 50% of relationships that start in the real world.
• Theories and research on virtual relationships might lack temporal validity because technology changes so fast that early computer interactions didn't have visual cues but now we have Skype and now we have snapchat and people are much more comfortable using video to communicate.
• Nonverbal communication is absolutely crucial in relationships while there are other cues that we use in text communication like send emojis and also the subtle hints we give about how long we spend between responding to someone's message.
• People see the Internet as a potential way to overcome the filters and gates that put on them because they get to meet many more people and they also feel they get to know these people online through self-disclosure of personal interests.
• Some people are trying to take advantage of the hyper personal model by producing a dishonest version of themselves.
• 54% of Internet daters felt like someone else seriously misrepresented themselves on their profile.
• An excessive dependence on virtual relationships might lead to negative social consequences in the real world because people don't get to practice reading nonverbal communication cues from other people and they don't practice giving them themselves.
• The use of online dating is becoming more acceptable across all people because it was previously seen as a little bit strange.
• The biggest reasons for using online dating for these people were meeting people who share similar hobbies and beliefs and values.
• Virtual environments are not the same as gaming sites because there is more self-disclosure than dating sites because if you contact someone on a dating site the assumption is that you might meet up and meet them face-to-face.