Effort, Depth, Satisfaction, and Resilience across the Spectrum of Online-to-Offline Relationships

The aim of this study is to explore the differences across the spectrum of digital and in-person relation-ships, which is more true to the actual social experience of young adults than most of the available re-search in this area, which tends to falsely dichotomize relationships as “online” or “offline.” The authors measured perceived relationship depth, effort, satisfaction, and resilience for as many relationships as participants chose to list across five categories: primarily in-person, primarily digital, combined in-person and digital, formerly in-person, and formerly-digital. Moderate, positive relationships were found among all variables across all relationship types, indicating that these are not independent constructs and are all important in understanding relationships of any kind. Those relationships with a strong, current in-person component (primarily in-person and combined) were rated as significantly deeper, more satisfying, more resilient, and requiring more effort than those without. Currently digital relationships (e.g., faceto-face friendships that had since transitioned to primarily online communication) consistently represented a middle ground between the high in-person contact and low in-person contact relationships, which substantiates the conceptualization of relationships along a continuum of online to offline. Interesting findings related to gender and relationship type (e.g., friend, relative) were also found.