Digital Romance: A research project exploring young people’s use of technology in their romantic relationships and love lives

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"Concluding thoughts Digital Romance set out to explore the role of digital technology in young people’s love lives and romantic relationships. We wanted to know about the positives and the negatives of using technology and to better understand the challenges young people faced. We also wanted to use these insights to improve education for young people. The centrality and affordances of technology The research revealed that technology enables and facilitates lots of positives in young people’s lives such as relational intimacy, connection, friendship and the ability to feel ‘more me’. It was refreshing to hear of the ways in which technology had enabled intimate and supportive relationships that would otherwise not have occurred (especially for those in minority groups and those who had felt isolated or less confident in face-to-face interactions). We also heard about the ways in which technology had supported many young people in flirting, having fun, becoming closer, communicating and expressing desires, and building confidence. Some also described technology as affording them with positive control, some freedom from negative judgements and pressures, and space to be authentic. Furthermore we found that social media is often used in positive ways in challenging situations. There were examples of technology being used to offer public support, to publicly condemn unkindness and discrimination, and to coordinate group efforts against those posing a risk or acting harmfully. When it came to the negatives, young people’s experiences and views demonstrated that technology could exacerbate the ‘drama’ of their relationships, and that some apps and platforms can be conducive to commenting (at times critically) on others’ appearance, interfering in others’ relationships and break-ups, as well as cheating and jealousy. We also saw that technology provides opportunities to verbally abuse, control and apply sexual pressure, and can make it easy to hurt others on the back of difficult post break-up feelings. Furthermore it facilitates stranger ‘hook ups’ (with their attendant risks) and the phenomenon of sharing others’ personal images without consent. These harms and risks were not experienced equally by all young people; some disproportionately affected LGBT young people, young women and/or those without supportive and open relationships with peers or adults. Many of our findings pointed to interactions between sexism, restrictive gender norms and technology, leading to harmful individual and group practices in particular towards girls. For example, high proportions reported frequent judgements on their appearance, and pressure to send sexual images and engage in sexual activity. Education and support: themes and useful directions of travel The research highlighted that some education (in particular online safety) was generally being done well and having an impact and that many young people felt well supported in their online relationships by parents and youth workers. Alongside this, the majority of young people reported that they were not receiving adequate education on relationships, and some also shared experiences of adults in their lives being judgmental or disinterested, both of which served to increase risk and harm. Their experiences and views provided many insights into how education and support might usefully evolve. There was a clear rejection of risk-only perspectives that was experienced as failing to engage with the reality that technology has benefits for young people from all communities." (McGeeney and Hanson, 2017: 46).