Rachel Ivancic
Thomas University
Cyber Romances or social relationships are connections developed by two or more people involving constant communication and interaction. The majority of people, who are involved in online romances, usually end up exploring these ventures offline. The budding of these interactions are when people find new contacts after accessing the net and social network, cf. (Wellman & Gulia, 1999). New relationships that occur online are often considered to have very weak ties, for example, not having any chemistry or intimate bonds on a personal level, like two people in a relationship are suppose to experience. For example, information being exchanged between colleagues, friends, who are miles away from you. However, individuals involved in cyber-romances have the ability to develop strong ties whether it is through platonic friendships or romantic relationships. A telephone survey taken in 1995, showed that 14% of US citizens that had access to the internet reported having become familiar with people on the net that they referred to as “friends”, finding no differentiation between romantic and non-romantic relationships (Katz & Aspden, 1997). After viewing numerous surveys which focused on active people in news groups involved in online dating websites, most ended up maintaining close relationships with others via the use of the internet increasing statistics to 61%, (53% friendships, 8% romantic) (Park & Floyd, 1996). The amounts of people increasingly affected by cyber-romances are indirectly associated with falling in love strictly from other online internet sources. Cyber-affairs (romances) are results of the socio-statistic composition of the net’s population usually pertaining to the people who are considered to be the minority, meaning, there are 9,177 people active online today (14% women, 86% men) and several have participated in the Cooper, Scherer, Boles and Gordon’s survey (WWWsurvey, 1999). The