Mobile Phones and Relationships

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS

Mobile Phone Usage and Romantic Relationships Abby Stewart and Tony Valentino Salem State University

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MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS Abstract

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This study looked at the relationship between mobile phone usage and how it can affect romantic relationships and attachment styles. We did research on this topic, reading multiple papers about the subject, and formulated our own hypothesis on the subject. The papers were in support of mobile phone usage having a positive effect on many romantic relationships.We hypothesized that there is a positive relationship between mobile phone use and romantic relationships and mobile phone use and attachment styles. We distributed a survey to college-age students to take, asking questions about their mobile phone use and to talk about their romantic relationships. We found a positive correlation between mobile phone use and romantic relationships and mobile phone use and attachment styles.

Introduction: In this project, we will be researching the correlation between mobile phone usages in romantic relationships for college-age students. All of the studies that we read about in our research were studying people in relationships who used mobile phones and their satisfaction in their relationship. These studies also discussed relational uncertainty that can occur in relationships and what effect mobile phones can have on that, with texting, phones calls, and social media. We will also be looking at how the usage of phones in romantic relationships has an effect on people’s attachment styles. Some people are more comfortable being dependent on their partner that others, and since a mobile phone allows a couple to have much more frequent contact with each other, it may have an effect on how they feel about a partner who is more clingy. The papers that we read also

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 3 seemed to show a positive relationship between the mobile phone use in a relationship and the attachment styles for each person in the couple. This topic is very important to have done this research and survey about because almost everyone owns a mobile phone, especially young people, and there are a lot of people who want to be in a good relationship, and may not know that their mobile phone usage will have an effect on their relationship satisfaction and attachment styles.

Literature Review 1. Mobile Phone Regular phone use is very important to people in relationships. The articles explain that most people keep their phones on and many people would feel like they would die if they didn’t have a phone. Many people also answer their phones even if they are busy. There is not too much privacy in these relationships and by shutting of their phones only then can someone feel like they are in control. Also married people use their phones to talk to each other and make their plans.

2. Romantic relationships The articles discussed the many different aspects of romantic relationships, and how connectivity from mobile phone usage can affect that. Researchers find that to call someone was to have a buildup but not a constant stream of messages. By getting together what you want to talk about you are free to live your life without the pressure of always having something to talk about. In today’s age the constant contact with the person you are dating creates a tension that you should always be talking and messages

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS are less meaningful. The counter argument is that it creates constant intimacy with

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everyday life.

3. Attachment styles People feel different ways about relationships. Some people want to have a partner who is always there 100% of the time, while some people want some more space from their partner. Some people view their partners as clingy if they are too involved in their lives, and do not like this, but other do. An important aspect of relationships is independence vs. dependence, which is how reliant you are on yourself vs. how reliant you are on your partner. If one partner in the relationship is very dependent, and one is very independent, the amount of times the partner tries to get into contact with them a day may overwhelm them.

4. The relationship between the above three There seems to be a positive relationship between mobile phone usage and relationships, but more for voice calls than text messages and using social media. The studies show that couples who made more voice calls than text messages had more relational satisfaction, relational security, and felt more committed to each other. Those who only texted felt this much less. In “Mobile Communications in Romantic Relationships: Mobile Phone Use, Relational Uncertainty, Love, Commitment, and Attachment Styles�, the study showed that the longer a couple dated, the less they texted and the more they use voice calls to communicate to help strengthen the relationship. Also, with a mobile phone, partners can communicate much more frequently, which may make some people feel uncomfortable if their attachment style is that they like to be left alone sometimes and not constantly in contact with their partner. It would be a negative impact on the relationship if someone

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 5 felt annoyed at how many times a day their partner tries to get into contact with them, and even may begin to ignore these attempts at contact.

5. We propose this hypothesis H1:Mobile phone usage will have a positive effect on romantic relationships when used for voice calls and text messaging.

H2: Mobile phone use in a relationship will have a positive effect on people’s attachment styles when used for voice calls and text messaging.

Future Research We would need to send out a survey to college-age students in order to see how mobile phones are affecting their romantic relationships. We would first ask some demographic questions about their gender, race, and highest level of education. Then, we would ask questions pertaining to their mobile phone usage, their relationship status, their relational satisfaction and certainty, and how connected they feel to their partner. We would also want to do some more research on how different types of communication on mobile phones, such as texting and phone calls have an effect on relationships.

Synthesis In both “Mobile Communication in Romantic Relationships: Mobile Phone Use, Relational Uncertainty, Love, Commitment, and Attachment Styles” and “Mobile Phones in Romantic Relationships and the Dialectic of Autonomy Versus Connection”, the authors come to the conclusion that frequent voice calls result in a higher level of relational satisfaction and certainty than frequent text messages. This is because a phone

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS call is much more personal than a text message, and couples that frequently call each

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other are able to form a stronger bond than those who just text. Frequent texting can result in a person feeling as though they have no privacy in a relationship, and the only way to get some is to turn their phone off.

Methods We used a survey as our method of data collection. This is a relevant method because we can find out about a lot of people’s experiences from one method. Also, since it was anonymous, people feel that they can be more honest and open with their responses. The data that was collected was about college-age students and their experiences with romantic relationships and mobile phone use. We first asked some demographic questions, some questions about their use of mobile phones, and how much they agreed with several statements about relationships based on an attachment scale that we found.

For this survey, we used a program called Google Forms and sent it out to classmates and friends and asked them to take it. The data was collected over the course of about a week and then the survey was closed. Twenty-four responses total were recorded for this survey.

We measured the happiness of people using mobile phones in romantic relationships. The variables measures were the amount of time they used their phones, the amount of times they contacted their partner, the amount of times their partner contacts them, and how happy they are in their relationship. To measure this, we created an attachment scale to measure people’s happiness in their relationship in relationship to their use of mobile phones. We chose this variable because phones are very prevalent for

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 7 communication now, and romantic relationships have been around since the beginning of time. We are seeing how well this new communication method works with this old method. Also, since mobile phones now allow people to pretty much constantly be in contact with each other, it can impact their relationship greatly if each partner has a different attachment style.

For our sample, we sent the survey out to our Facebook friends and to our classmates. The survey was posted on each of our Facebooks, where some of our friends took it, and we also sent it out to the class so we could get even more data from collegeage students. We chose this sample because many young college-age people are in romantic relationships and they use their phones very frequently, usually for hours a day.

We thought that this would be the best way to get a lot of results in a pretty short time, because people can take the survey whenever they want and we don’t need to set up an interview with them or anything. We used a convenience sample for this survey, because we sent it out to people for them to choose to take or not. Our survey provided a reliable and valid method to measure our data and to achieve the results that our hypothesis predicted.

For the results of our survey, we found the correlation between the amounts of time someone uses their phone and how they felt about certain aspects of romantic relationships, such as how they feel about clinginess and how comfortable people are with telling their partner about things going on in their lives. We used an attachment scale asked them to rate how they felt about these aspects. This survey was a quantitative research method. To find our results, we averaged the responses we received for each

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS question about the attachment scale we made and then found how much they were

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correlated with the respondent's’ phone usage.

Results The demographics of our respondents are as follows: 83.3% white, and 16.7% Hispanic, 83.3% female, 16.7% male, 75% straight and 25% bisexual, and 70.8% have a high school diploma, 8.3% have an Associate’s degree, 12.5% have a Bachelor’s degree, 4.2% have a Master’s degree, and 4.2% have a doctoral degree. Also, 50% reported being single, 20.8% were in a relationship, 12.5% were married, and 16.7% were unsure of their relationship status.

Overall, our respondents said that mobile phones helped to make them satisfied in their relationship. For the most part, our respondents felt very secure in their relationships, instead of unsure, due to the use of mobile phones. However, many did report they would run out of things to say to their partner while texting them, but a majority did not. Choosing to make more phone calls rather than just texting all the time could help these people no to run out of things to say so easily.

Overall, our respondents also said that mobile phones were positively related to their attachment styles. A lot of our respondents said that a partner being too clingy does not really make them nervous, and the use of mobile phones can help to emphasize a person’s clinginess. Also, many of our respondents are worried that their partner does not care about them as much as they care about their partner, but many others do not care.

This would show the divide of independence vs. dependence in relationships. While

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 9 people would not typically mind if their partner was clingy, they still worry that there is an uneven balance of who cares more about the other in a relationship.

For the correlation of how many hours a day the respondent used their phone to the attachment scale was 0.13. The correlation of how many times a person texted or called their partner to the attachment scale was 0.10. The correlation of how many times a respondent’s partner texted or called them was 0.18. All of these show a positive correlation between the two variables. From this analysis, we intended to learn about the relationship between mobile phone usage and its effect on romantic relationships and attachment scales. In order to get information from the data, we can put it in a spreadsheet and analyze the data there for each respondent.

Discussion These results did support our hypothesis. In the articles we read, they talked about how mobile phone usage in relationships will have a positive impact on them. The results that we got from this study help to prove this. The articles also talked about how mobile phones had a positive relationship with the attachment styles of people, which is also what our results were able to show. For future research, we could create a new scale for attachment styles and present that in a new survey. We would then pass that out to the same group who took our first survey to see if they would answer differently than they did the first time. This would also help to ensure that our results are accurate. Some limitations for our survey could be that we did not really receive a lot of responses for our survey, so we could have very well gotten a different outcome had more people taken it.

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 10 Also, since it was an anonymous survey, we can’t be sure that people were being one hundred percent honest, or if they were just going with the majority.

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 11 References: Duaran, Robert L.; Kelly, Lynne; and Rotaru, Teodora (March 2011). Mobile Phones in Romantic Relationships and the Dialectic of Autonomy Versus Connection. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b7362d38-0625-47beacba-115b29397f54%40sessionmgr4004&vid=1&hid=4104

Jin, Borae,;and Peńa, Jorge F (Jan 2008). Mobile Communication in Romantic Relationships: The Relationship Between Mobile Phone Use and Relational Uncertainty, Intimacy, and Attachment. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=82835a5a-6ac7-4b2c-9261f9460c41456d%40sessionmgr4001&vid=1&hid=4104

Jin, Borae,;and Peńa, Jorge F (June 2010). Mobile Communication in Romantic Relationships: Mobile Phone Use, Relational Uncertainty, Love, Commitmnet, and Attachment Styles. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=558d4ff7-558a-46f5-af1f6e57a7238445%40sessionmgr4002&vid=1&hid=4104

Miller-Ott, Aimee E.; Kelly, Lynne; and Duran, Robert (March 2012). The Effects of Cell Phone Usage Rules on Satisfaction in Romantic Relationships. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e7cf88bd-3652-471e-9ebb4248d393bb96%40sessionmgr4003&vid=3&hid=4107

MOBILE PHONES AND RELATIONSHIPS 12 Weia, Meife, Russel, Daniel W., Mallinckrod, Brent and Vogel, David L. (Jan. 2007).

The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (ECR)-Short Form: Reliability, Validity, and Factor Structure. Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223890701268041