Abstract
One thousand university students were e-mailed a survey about relationships they had established on the Internet. Of the 248 who returned the survey, 88 (36%) indicated they had formed a friendship with another individual in an on-line setting. Nineteen (22%) described it as a close romantic relationship. These respondents were e-mailed a second survey concerning various aspects of their romantic relationship. The frequency of romantic on-line relationships in the university population investigated was determined to be.0766, or 76 per 1,000 students. The 12 respondents who returned the second survey rated their on-line relationship as equal to or superior to those they had established off-line on measures of strength, satisfaction, and ease of communication. The findings were discussed in terms of those features of computer-mediated communication that can facilitate the development of close relationships, as well as their implications for contemporary theories of relationship formation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.