Modern Love: You, Me, and Smartphone Makes Three

Abstract

Romantic, dyadic relationships arise, in part, from communication, disclosure, and boundaries. Information communication technology (ICT), such as smartphones, has rapidly integrated into our personal lives and affected relationship initiation, maintenance, and dissolution. To this point, models attempting to account for this emerging dynamic center on past theories about relationships. However, counselors and researchers would benefit from understanding contemporary couple dynamics that reflect the ICT-mediated changes to coupling that occurred during the last decade. To address this need, researchers conducted a grounded theory study to explore relationship dynamics, mediated by ICT, based on stories and descriptions provided by 16 participants. Findings showed technology influenced relationships in four domains: access, intimacy, boundaries, and presence.

Keywords:

• Dating relationships
• dyadic formation
• early adulthood permeability of boundaries
• premarital relationships
• qualitative research
• relationships