The Development of Online and Offline Romantic Relationships: A Turning Point Study by Sophia W. McDowell
Following Baxter and Bullis’ (1986) methods, participants were recruited in a variety of ways. Volunteers were solicited from lower-division classes at the researcher’s university. In addition, links to the online study were posted on two websites that deal with online romantic relationships. Finally, participants were sought using "network sampling" (Granovetter, 1976). Acquaintances of the researcher were asked to solicit qualifying individuals in their social networks who were personally unknown to the researcher. Also, after completion of a survey, volunteers were asked to promote the study to other individuals in their respective social networks who might be interested in participating. As an incentive for participation, volunteers were offered a chance to win by lottery a $50 gift certificate at an online retailer.
The sample consisted of 206 individuals, of whom 103 reported that they were currently involved in a romantic relationship that began online and 103 reported that they were currently involved in such a relationship that began FtF. Following Baxter and Bullis (1986) and Bullis et al. (1993), all participants were involved in that current dating relationship for at least six months. This study was also limited to relationships in their first three years in order to maintain comparability of the couples included. The length of relationships ranged from 6 to 36 months, with an average length of 17.57 months. Participants were required to be aged 18 years or older. Respondents’ ages ranged from 18 to 59, with the mean age being 25. Seventy four percent of respondents were female.
The majority of participants were Caucasian (71%), followed by Asian (15%), Black or African American and Hispanic or Latin (7% each). Responses came from residents of countries throughout the globe: 70% came from the United States, followed by 9% from Europe, 7% from Canada, 5% from Asia, 4% from Oceania, and 1% from South America. Nearly half of the participants (46%) were currently enrolled in college, 20% had bachelor’s degrees, 11% were high-school graduates, and 8% had post-college degrees.