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34 - Technology and Personal Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2026

By
John P. Caughlin ,
Erin K. Ruppel ,
Bree McEwan  and
Andrew C. High
Edited by
Anita L. Vangelisti ,
Daniel Perlman  and
Susan Sprecher
Anita L. Vangelisti
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Daniel Perlman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Susan Sprecher
Affiliation:
Illinois State University
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Summary

People enact meaningful personal relationships using communication technologies. The current chapter overviews how technology and personal relationships are intertwined. The perspective of the chapter is centered on how people relate via technologies while recognizing the importance of understanding the technologies themselves and how they are used. The chapter has three main sections. The first examines how communication technologies are integral to relational communication across the course of relationships, and the second considers factors that shape the nature and impact of relational communication occurring via technologies. The third section focuses on both relationships and technologies by considering the contemporary notion of mixed-media relationships, which are enacted via multiple channels, often simultaneously. Finally, the conclusion of the chapter elucidates some key complexities and their implications for future research and theory, including the need to consider both technologies and messages simultaneously and the challenges of analyzing multimodal communication in relationships.

Keywords

computer-mediated communicationsocial mediapersonal relationshipsmultimodal communicationrelational communication

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Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships , pp. 719 - 743
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2026

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