Online relationships vs offline relationships - Research Paper Example

This research attempts to explore the question of how traditional relationships have changed, and compares online relationships with traditional face-to-face relationships. A study was conducted to understand clearly how romantic online relationships are created the nature of these relationships how they compare with the traditional relationships and the possible effects that they have on the existing face-to-face relationships. In an online survey, interview established that 98 per cent of the respondents formed relationships online through text-based games (McKenna et al. 11). From a randomly selected newsgroup, 51 percent of respondents made close relationships and 35 per cent established romantic relationships.

Most of those who form online romantic relationships are educated men in professional occupations, they are 35 years and above, most of them are married with two or more children. In addition, research shows that, 70 % of the people who engage in an online relationship have a full time employment, 28% are students and 2% are retired (McKenna et al. 20). Majority are college students with a few high school students. Notably, many men engage in an online relationship because of their social role of being the first to make a move in romantic relationships.

Most of them are attracted to online relationship because; it enables them to develop a relationship in an organic way (McKenna et al. 25). A relationship that develops with little pressure, and one which starts due to emotions and not just a meager contact. According to Underwood and Findlay, social interactions through the internet resemble the traditional face-to-face interactions although the behavior of people who are dating online tends to be different from those dating offline (135). The researchers established this by asking the respondents whether they have engaged in certain actives with people whom they date online and