Love on the Internet: involvement and misrepresentation in romantic relationships in cyberspace vs. realspace

This study compares reported romantic relationships of chat room users in cyberspace vs. in face-to-face relationships in everyday contexts (``realspace''). As hypothesized, involvement Ð particularly commitment and seriousness Ð tended to be lower in cyberspace than in realspace romantic relationships, and misrepresentation Ð speci®cally of age and physical attributes Ð tended to be higher in cyberspace than in realspace relationships. A causal analysis indicated that space a€ected level of involvement which in turn a€ected amount of misrepresentation. Cyberspace respondents were older than realspace respondents. Few di€erences were evident for gender or education. Possibilities for future research regarding romantic relationships and cyberspace are brie ̄y discussed. # 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.