TY - JOUR
T1 - Adolescent online romantic relationship initiation
T2 - Differences by sexual and gender identification
AU - Korchmaros, Josephine D.
AU - Ybarra, Michele L.
AU - Mitchell, Kimberly J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The project described was supported by Award Number R01HD057191 (PI: Ybarra) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development or the National Institutes of Health. We would like to thank the entire study team from the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, the University of New Hampshire, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Latrobe University, and Harris Interactive, who contributed to the planning and implementation of the study. We also thank the study participants for their time and willingness to participate in this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.
PY - 2015/4/1
Y1 - 2015/4/1
N2 - Data from the national Teen Health and Technology Study of adolescents 13-18 years old (N=5091) were used to examine online formation of romantic relationships. Results show that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) and non-LGBTQ adolescents similarly were most likely to have met their most recent boy/girlfriend in the past 12 months at school. However, they differed on many characteristics of romantic relationship initiation, including the extent to which they initiated romantic relationships online. LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ adolescents also differed on level of offline access to potential partners, offline popularity, and numerous other factors possibly related to online relationship initiation (e.g., Internet use and demographic factors). Even after adjusting for differences in these factors, LGBTQ adolescents were more likely than non-LGBTQ adolescents to find boy/girlfriends online in the past 12 months. The results support the rich-get-richer hypothesis as well as the social compensation hypothesis.
AB - Data from the national Teen Health and Technology Study of adolescents 13-18 years old (N=5091) were used to examine online formation of romantic relationships. Results show that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) and non-LGBTQ adolescents similarly were most likely to have met their most recent boy/girlfriend in the past 12 months at school. However, they differed on many characteristics of romantic relationship initiation, including the extent to which they initiated romantic relationships online. LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ adolescents also differed on level of offline access to potential partners, offline popularity, and numerous other factors possibly related to online relationship initiation (e.g., Internet use and demographic factors). Even after adjusting for differences in these factors, LGBTQ adolescents were more likely than non-LGBTQ adolescents to find boy/girlfriends online in the past 12 months. The results support the rich-get-richer hypothesis as well as the social compensation hypothesis.
KW - Adolescents
KW - Internet use
KW - Romantic relationship initiation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.01.004
DO - 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.01.004
M3 - Article
C2 - 25625753
AN - SCOPUS:84921523350
SN - 0140-1971
VL - 40
SP - 54
EP - 64
JO - Journal of Adolescence
JF - Journal of Adolescence
ER -