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Abstract
This study examines the associations between mobile phone use and relational uncertainty, love and commitment, and attachment styles. A survey of 197 college students revealed that greater use of mobile voice calls with a romantic partner was associated with lower relational uncertainty and more love and commitment. Also, the higher the avoidance, the less the participants used voice calls, and an interaction effect was found between avoidance and anxiety on voice call use. However, there were no significant results in relation to the use of text messaging. Overall, more mobile calls in romantic relationships are associated with positive relationship qualities.
A previous version of this paper was presented at the National Communication Association Annual Convention held in San Diego, CA, November 2008.
Notes
Note. Zero-order correlations (N = 187–197) are below diagonal; partial correlations controlling for sex and relationship length (N = 187) are above the diagonal line. Sex was coded as 1 being male and 2 being female.
∗p < .05, ∗∗p < .01, ∗∗∗p < .001, one-tailed.
Twenty-eight (14.2%) participants reported zero (0) as their use of text messaging. Except for these participants, 10 minutes is the mode of text messaging time and 6 times is the mode of text messaging frequency.
Participants were categorized into one of the four groups whether their scores were high or low in avoidance or anxiety, which was not based on medians but guided by the instructions published with the instrument (Brennan et al., Citation1998).