Accelerated intimacy; Love in the age of texting faster overall
 

HERE - Fredericton
Thu Apr 7 2011
Page: A4
Section: Main
Byline: Laura Lyall

FREDERICTON - Bygone are the days of dates at the local pop shop and coy hand holding at the carnival. Today, we've got misspelled texts and crotch shots to woo our beloved.

And Lucia O'Sullivan wants to talk about it. The UNB psychology professor holds a Canada Research Chair in adolescent and sexual health behaviour. On April 6 she delivered her lecture Tweeting, Texting, Teens &Chat: The Internet and Sex in the Lives of Youth at Fredericton High School.

New media has had an effect on the way young people, who O'Sullivan calls digital natives, communicate, flirt and treat private information,

"A lot of our private relationship life is actually not private at all.

It's very public and known to your 700 closest friends in a millisecond," O'Sullivan said before her talk.

Though, she admits, this isn't all bad.

"There seems to be much fewer boundaries between private and public in younger peoples' worlds in a way that I think is kind of healthy; fewer inhibitions, less shame."

This tendency towards diminished inhibitions has accelerated intimacy in relationships. Young people are more readily disclosing private information, she said, "There's some really decent research to show that computer-mediated communication, particularly text messaging or e-mail, has this hyper-personalization effect where people are much more likely to divulge private information and feel and develop intimacy faster."

These fuzzy feelings of intimacy and the perception of distance and anonymity may lead to the exchange of sexually explict photographs and texts. O'Sullivan said through her own studies she's found that heavy texters tend to have a risk profile associated with more sexual partners and riskier sexual behaviour than moderate texters. However, she said, young people are intelligent regarding technology, and parents shouldn't panic.

"(Young people) are tech-saavy...they're much more aware of the dangers than we give them credit for," said O'Sullivan. "If parents are concerned that this is somehow accelerating their sexual lives, likely not. If they want to stop their sexual development, (it's) never gonna happen. The best they can do with technology or sex, or any of the overlapping areas is to stay informed, stay alert, discuss and get out of the way."

Contact Laura Lyall at lyall.laura@herenb.com

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