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Saturday, 12 March 2005

Online communications are 'still cheating'

An Internet relationship can still be as damaging to a marriage or partnership as any other form of cheating according to new research by psychologist Dr Monica Whitty of Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

People tend to regard intimate Online communications as infidelity even if no physical contact is involved. 245 students at Queen's University were asked to complete stories in which one partner from a couple develops an Internet relationship. More than 50% of the stories portrayed the partner emailing sweet nothings over the Web as being unfaithful and 84% portrayed the "victim" partner feeling betrayed.

Women are more likely than men to give "emotional infidelity" as the reason why an Internet affair was equivalent to cheating. Women are also more likely to see an Internet affair as damaging to a relationship.

The most frequent reason cited as to why Online intimacy is an act of infidelity is that it is wrong to have a relationship with more than one person at one time.

Not everyone agreed on the morality of carrying on an Internet relationship in addition to another relationship. In 27% of the stories the character having the Online relationship did not believe they were doing anything wrong.

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