By: Erica Padron

“Are you two dating?” “No, we just talk.”

I hear about the “talking” stage in relationships all the time. In my personal experience, I have come to know that when two people are “talking” it means they are getting to know each other before becoming a couple. If you are familiar with this at all, it usually involves adding each other on social media, texting throughout the day, and sometimes even video calls. As much as technology gets a bad reputation, when it comes to relationships, phones are becoming the very thing responsible for their development.

It is no secret that the way we do relationships has changed as a result of social media and the mobile technologies our phones contain. These channels are especially important at the beginning of a relationship when it comes to first impressions and learning about the other person. So, where does it go from there? Our phones have not just become a tool for forming close relationships, they have become part of the way those relationships develop and how we maintain them.

A 2017 study by Robert Duran and Lynne Kelly from the University of Hartford examined the function of Facebook, texting, and phone calls in the first four stages of the relational development model created by communication researcher, Mark Knapp. In the form of a staircase, the model illustrates 10 relational stages in the context of a three-part view comprised of how relationships come together, how they are maintained and how they come apart. Duran and Kelly’s study examined the initiating, experimenting, intensifying, and integrating stages, which fall under the coming together umbrella but also involve some relational maintenance.

The researchers surveyed 251 undergraduate students about their use of the three channels in the context of romantic relationships. They found that the channels were used for different purposes in the latter two stages than in the earlier stages. People preferred to learn more about the other person through Facebook over the other two channels. In the latter stages, Facebook was used to go public with their relationship. Texting was used to plan meetings in the early stages and, in the latter stages, to stay connected throughout the day as well as express affection. Phone calls were used in a similar manner as texting where in the early stages they were used to show interest and in the latter to communicate the desire to hang out.

As we can tell by the findings of the study, these stages accurately translate into our use of social media, texting, and calling for the means of developing a relationship with someone we are interested in. I am guilty of the social media thing where we add the person and learn what kind of person they are by looking at what they post and who they are friends with. This typically leads to a direct message to show we are interested and it just keeps going from there depending on how well you connect with each other.

So, how does all of this reliance on these technology impact face-to-face communication in developing and maintaining relationships?

In a 2015 study, Loyd Pettegrew from the University of South Florida and Carolyn Day from Savannah College of Art & Design further investigated how mobile devices and mediated messages impact the way college students communicate interpersonally, and how those relationships develop. Through a questionnaire completed by 526 communication majors, they found that mobile technologies tend to replace face-to-face communication or at the very least compete heavily with it.

The most common responses to questions about mobile technology’s positive impact included key words such as “immediate, constant, efficient, and easier.” Overall, the students reported using mobile technology consistently regardless of its potential to create misinterpretations, disrupt face-to-face communication and decrease the quality and skills of their communication.

It is evident that in today’s digital-heavy generation we recognize that the use of technology has its pros and cons. We often hear the impact described as a “double-edged sword.” We like that our phones keep us connected with others 24/7, but we are also aware of the potential chaos of communicating over mediated channels, especially in close and intimate relationships.

What I found very interesting about Pettegrew and Day’s study was that only 27% of participants responded that mobile devices are not better than face-to-face communication in romantic relationships out of the 96% of responses the researchers were able to put into categories. The other 69% of responses made up categories that praised the role of mobile devices in romantic relationships. The top three responses behind those who said mobile devices are not better than face-to-face fell into these categories: being able to communicate when you are apart, feeling less nervous, and making communication easier/quicker.

We learned from Duran and Kelly’s study that in the early stages of relationship development, our phones hold a lot of power. Pettegrew and Day’s study proves that the reliance on mobile devices persists throughout intimate relationships, making phones the main way we now manage the development of close relationships. We can conclude that the purpose of digital channels of communication change as a relationship progresses; therefore, we have to stay on top of assessing how we can effectively use our phones to develop our relationships.

The findings of these two studies show us that mediated messages through our phones have become integrated into the process of how our relationships develop. We have progressed past the question of “does this work?” as demonstrated by these studies. Mobile technologies go far in the development of relationships and we are becoming very much dependent on them to maintain our connection. Many of us might not realize how our mobile devices guide us through these different stages in our close relationships, but it is a good idea to start noticing their impact so that we know how to use them successfully in developing and maintaining our relationships