The University of Florida just released a study on this subject, "Online Dating Virtually Irresistible To Some Married Folks." Here are some excerpts.
"Never before has the dating world been so handy for married men and women looking for a fling," said Beatriz Avila Mileham, who conducted the research for her doctoral dissertation in counselor education at UF. "With cybersex, there is no longer any need for secret trips to obscure motels. An online liaison may even take place in the same room with one's spouse."
Counseling organizations report chat rooms are the fastest-rising cause of relationship breakdowns, and the problem only stands to get worse as today's population of Internet users, estimated at 649 million worldwide, continues to grow, Mileham said.
"The Internet will soon become the most common form of infidelity, if it isn't already," she said.
Mileham conducted in-depth online interviews with men and women from various states and conditions.
"The No. 1 complaint from men was lack of sex in the marriage," Mileham said. "Many of them said their wife was so involved in childrearing that she wasn't interested in having sex." Because there is no touching involved in online chat conversations, married people often rationalize their behavior as harmless fun, Mileham said. Eighty-three percent of the study's participants said they did not consider themselves to be cheating, and the remaining 17 percent deemed it a "weak" form of infidelity that was easily justifiable, she said.
Other research has shown, however, that most spouses feel as betrayed, angry and hurt by online infidelity as they would if skin-to-skin adultery had taken place, she said.
So these people don't cheat! Who are they kidding?
"The No. 1 complaint from men was lack of sex in the marriage," Mileham said. "Many of them said their wife was so involved in childrearing that she wasn't interested in having sex." Because there is no touching involved in online chat conversations, married people often rationalize their behavior as harmless fun, Mileham said. Eighty-three percent of the study's participants said they did not consider themselves to be cheating, and the remaining 17 percent deemed it a "weak" form of infidelity that was easily justifiable, she said.
Said one such man, "While I'm on the computer my wife just assumes I'm writing a report for work." Another man said his wife, who knew what he was doing and didn't like it, looked over his shoulder sometimes while he was typing, Mileham said.
And some participants go even further.
Twenty-six of the 86 study participants went on to meet the person whom they had been engaged in an online relationship with, and of these, all but two ended up having a real-life affair. One 66-year-old man ended up having 13 affairs this way, she said.
Source: Cathy Keen, University of Florida, July 17, 2003
12:12:42 PM Permalink
|
|
