America
Facebook boosts long-distance romance
London, March 12
If you are in a long-distance
romantic relationship, using Facebook to get in touch helps to a great
extent but the same is not true if your girlfriend lives in the same
area or city, finds a research.
"Social network sites are used
more frequently by those in long-distance relationships," said Brenda K.
Wiederhold from the Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California,
and the Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium.
As
long-distance relationships become more common, and continue to
succeed, it becomes increasingly valuable to understand the role that
technology plays in strengthening or damaging a romantic relationship,"
she explained.
The findings showed that social networking sites
such as Facebook play an important role in maintaining relationships
when individuals are involved in a geographically long-distance romantic
relationship.
For the study, co-authors Cherrie Joy Billedo,
Peter Kerkhof, and Catrin Finkenauer from the VU University Amsterdam,
the Netherlands, and the University of the Philippines, described
differences in the intensity of use and the types of uses of social
network sites between the close-by verses long-distance relationship
groups.
They reported how use of social network sites allows
individuals to access information about and monitor the activities of
romantic partners.
"This can be used to gauge a partner's
involvement in the relationship and loyalty, with potentially positive
or detrimental effects," the authors wrote.
The study was published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.