Keeping tabs: Attachment anxiety and electronic intrusion in high school dating relationships

Social media have become significant contexts for dating relationships among high school students. These media, which allow for increased visibility of dating partners' information and constant connectivity, may put teens at risk for problematic digital dating behaviors. This study sought to replicate and expand on research with college students to examine the association between attachment insecurity (relationship anxiety and avoidance) and electronic intrusion in high school dating relationships. Electronic intrusion (EI) is the use of social media to intrude into the privacy of a dating partner, monitor a partner's whereabouts and activities, and pressure a partner for constant contact. A survey study of 703 high school girls and boys found that higher levels of attachment anxiety were associated with more frequent perpetration of EI for both girls and boys. Therefore, especially for anxiously attached teens, social media may create a “cycle of anxiety” in which social media serve as both a trigger for relationship anxiety and a tool for partner surveillance in an attempt to alleviate anxiety. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Digital media use among adolescents is frequent, varied, and integrated into their daily life and relationships. Data indicate that 77% of adolescents have a cell phone, and that 95% of teens ages 12e17 are on the Internet (Lenhart, 2012). Teens are also avid users of social media, with data indicating that 80% of teens aged 12e17 have a profile on a social networking site (e.g., Twitter) (Lenhart et al., 2010). Forty percent of Facebook users visit the site several times a day (Duggan & Smith, 2013), and most adolescents report using social media daily (Lenhart et al., 2010). Social media are particularly relevant for high school students' social relationships, during a developmental period in which emotional regulation is maturing and capacity for romantic intimacy is a primary concern (Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009; Furman & Buhrmester, 2009). We posit that attachment orientation, a universal underlying system of emotional regulation and orientation towards intimacy, may influence the experience and interpretation of digital dating behaviors among high school students. The nature of social media may put teens, especially teens with insecure attachment orientations, at risk for problematic dating behaviors. Previous research on college students has found that social media may serve as a trigger for relationship jealousy and anxiety and provide opportunities and tools for surveillance (Marshall, Bejanyan, Di Castro, & Lee, 2013; Reed, Tolman, & Safyer, 2015). In our previous study, we found that college women and men reporting higher levels of attachment anxiety were more likely to engage in electronic intrusion (EI) in their dating relationships, and college women reporting higher levels of avoidance were less likely to engage in EI (Reed, Tolman, & Safyer, 2015). Electronic intrusion is a common form of “digital dating abuse,” which is the repeated use of social media to harass, pressure, threaten, or coerce a dating partner (Futures without Violence, 2009; Reed, Tolman, &Ward, in press). EI is an umbrella term for all digital dating abuse meant to monitor or invade the privacy of dating partners using digital media (Reed, Tolman, & Safyer, 2015; Reed, Tolman, & Ward, in press). Problematic dating behaviors and abuse in early dating relationships have been linked to experiencing further relationship abuse across the lifespan (see Shorey, Cornelius,& Bell, 2008 for a review). Therefore, we sought to replicate and build on previous work with college students to investigate whether the association between * Corresponding author. Present address: Center for School-Based Youth Development, Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara,