Romantic relationships and tech

Also known as:

online dating

Risk

Type of risk: Abusive relationships

Romantic relationships can be supported by using tech, including hardware (like mobile devices) and software (like online platforms).

Tech often plays a positive or useful role in romantic relationships.

For example, someone might use:

dating apps or social media to meet a new partner
mobile devices to communicate with someone
video calling to keep in touch while in a long-distance relationship

A young person might use tech for support after a romantic relationship ends. For example, by using social media to reach out to friends or find support groups. They may also use tech to end a romantic relationship.

Tech can have a negative impact on romantic relationships. For example, private or sexual imagery could be widely shared online without consent. Some online platforms and software can also help someone to spy, coerce, or control someone else.

Where this can happen

all sections

Risks and motivations

Risks

Non-consensual image sharing

Nude sharing involves sending nude imagery to another person. Someone in a relationship might send their partner nude imagery. Once shared, the sender has no control over how the imagery might be used. For example, the recipient could distribute the imagery without the sender’s consent or knowledge.

Having private or sexual material shared can be very distressing. It can make someone anxious or embarrassed. It might have an impact on their everyday life.

Sharing of a person’s private or sexual imagery without consent could count as revenge porn. This is a criminal offence.

Privacy and spyware

Some forms of tech, like spy apps or phone clones, can be used by someone to monitor a partner’s behaviour or online activity. These apps might allow someone to view text messages, record calls, access social media accounts, or track someone’s location. This is cyberstalking.

Some individuals will also digitally monitor their partner in other ways. This might include frequently viewing their story or logging into their partner’s account. These behaviours can sometimes be a sign of a controlling or abusive relationship.

Grooming

Tech can be used to groom and manipulate someone. For example, someone may text or direct message a person over a long period after finding them online. They may rely on fake social profiles and image sharing to build up trust.

The target might not realise they are being groomed. They may believe the abuser is a genuine friend or romantic partner. Being groomed can have unpredictable consequences. Some of these, like physical abuse, are extremely harmful.

Motivations

Reasons a young person might use tech to begin, maintain or end a romantic relationship online include:

meeting people more easily
finding it easier communicating through devices and platforms or ‘coded’ text speak, than in person
feeling more comfortable speaking anonymously online

Young people’s voice

So we started talking on there, and like, after, I think, a day, we established that there was something. Three or four days later, we actually FaceTimed. And I was, like, “Okay, nervous, I can do it,” We, we literally FaceTimed each other and we both couldn’t look at the camera. We completely fell for each other like that (laughs)... I don’t even know how to describe it. It was, like, the connection we actually had, like... When, when people say, “Oh, you’ve got a relationship overseas, how does that work?” I’m, like, “It’s hard. It is hard, ‘cos you don’t actually get to, like, feel their hand or be able to even...[pause].. Skin contact. [For her birthday] I, erm, sent her a little package and I sprayed the card with my aftershave so she could, like, you know, smell me. And, erm, she smelt it and she started crying, cos, er, it was something, it was some sort of interaction. We spend the whole night together. Like, when she’s sleeping and she wakes up halfway through the night, she has sleep paralysis, she lies there and she’s, like... She’s just glad to see me. At one point, we spent every second in a day with each other, we did a Skype call what lasted over 74 hours.. I feel physically attracted to her. Like there is no-one that could top her [but sex] isn’t something that’s, like, there for us. When I get there [to the US], I want to be able to hug her and kiss her, and be, like but I don’t wanna go any further than that, like. She doesn’t have the most easiest life... sometimes she’s just crying, and the one thing I want to do is physically hug her. But it’s because we’re so far away, I have to be, like... “Take my sympathy.” And it’s... It isn’t an easy thing. Like, when, when you have your boyfriend or, like, girlfriend, you, you can just be, like, “Oh, there, there, it’s gonna be fine,” but when it’s halfway across the world, you have to, kind of... You have to, kind of, erm, put it out in a way that they will understand.

16 year old

Digital romance: A research project exploring young people’s use of technology in their romantic relationships and love lives. Brook & CEOP 2017

If a couple was having an argument, it sometimes just gets put on social media, like, she’ll tell her friends, he’ll tell his friends and then they both end up just, kind of, colliding and defending the side of the other, whoever their mate is, and different mates as well and social media, it, kind of, just gets egged on through that. Then other people start joining in who it’s nothing to do with, just because of the sake they want a bit of drama...

Young person

Digital romance: A research project exploring young people’s use of technology in their romantic relationships and love lives. Brook & CEOP 2017

What you can do

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