Internet Infidelity: Exploration of Attitudes towards Partners Internet Behaviors

Background : Today, the Internet has become a part of our everyday life and online communications have made it easy for people to develop interpersonal relationships. However, certain problems and difficulties have arisen from this issue. One of these problems, which have been prevalent among couples and families, is extramarital internet relationships or internet infidelity. The present research has been done to study people's attitudes towards this phenomenon.
Materials and Methods : A 43-item Internet Infidelity Questionnaire (IIQ) was presented on a website designed for this purpose. 481 Iranian users who were members of Farsi language forums and chat rooms were selected through available community sampling and enrolled in the study. To analyze research data, descriptive statistics and the t-test were used.
Results : The results showed that either women or men considered online sexual activities of their partners as traitorous compared with friendly and emotional activities in cyberspace. In addition, women in comparison with men had a more negative attitude towards their partners’ internet activity (especially online sexual activities).
Conclusion : This study expanded our understanding of the traditional concept of infidelity that had merely limited it to face-to-face sexual and emotional behavior. The results also showed that women had more negative attitudes towards such activities compared to men.