Online Intimate Relationship:Nature and Communication Pattern

The internet is not about technology and information, it is about communication, people talking with each other. The rapid growth of personal e-mail communication, instant messaging and online communities has caught attention of the social scientists to the establishment of online interpersonal relations. The purpose of the present study was to explore the online intimate relationship, a kind of virtual interpersonal relationship, to investigate the communication pattern by focusing on some dynamics of online intimate/close friend relationship, some dimensions of intimacy, like trust, similarity, self disclosure, commitment, and text communication. The information was collected from members of online communities, Orkut, Facebook and chat rooms with the help of online questionnaire. The analysis was done on questions related to dynamics of online intimate relationship with opposite sex, covered by section 1 ofthe questionnaire, section 2 included a scale of Intimacy, and questions on five dimensions of intimacy that are trust, commitment, similarity, predictability, self disclosure, and communication pattern in the context of online relations. The findings suggest that Social Networking Sites (SNSs) like Orkut and Facebook are mostly used sites and promoting the formation of online socio-emotional attachments. People make online friends who belong to same age, qualification and occupation. Self discloser is found the most important component of intimacy in online relationship as compared to other components. The communication pattern is also intimate type like emotional involvement and hyper personal.