Dating, flirting, cheating - social media and other online venues are ripe for making and breaking romantic alliances, suggests an online survey of 1,000 Americans 18 and older being released today.
"Fundamentally, what social media has done is make it unbelievably easier to flirt and meet people and follow up," says David Jones, global CEO of ad and marketing agency Euro RSCG Worldwide. Its survey, fielded in January, captures Americans' most up-to-date attitudes about romance online.
More than a third (34%) of those surveyed believe it's possible to have a romantic relationship on the Internet, especially men (41% vs. 28% for women). Younger respondents were more likely to think so, but 21% of those over 65 did as well.
Half of respondents overall know someone who started a relationship online, and even among those 65 and up, 26% said they did. And 31% know someone whose relationship ended because of his or her actions online.
The Internet "makes it much easier to start a relationship, get caught and make a relationship come to an end," Jones says.
Erotic relationships are possible online, too, one-third say. Men and younger adults were more likely to agree. "People consider what they experience online to be part of their erotic lives," says psychologist Sherry Turkle of MIT, whose research focuses on online behavior. "When they think of love, they think of virtual places as well as physical ones. ... They cycle in and out of the physical and virtual."
Lots of flirting happens online, and 64% of those surveyed say the Internet has made it easier for people to cheat on their partners.
More men (39%) say they flirt online than women (23%), and not just singles - 18% of married respondents admit to it, too. (Chris Lee, former congressman from New York and married father, found flirting online to be his undoing; he resigned Wednesday after it was revealed he had sent flirtatious messages and a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist.)
The survey raises the question of whether online relationships are truly cheating; most say it is. Just 5% of respondents agreed with the statement "Having a strongly sexual relationship online doesn't count as cheating on your partner."
By Mary Brophy Marcus, USA TODAY
