Consider how technology, specifically the Internet, has changed your personal life. With a few taps of the keyboard, or smartphone, you can connect with your long-lost high school sweetheart or you can flirt with someone brand new.
If you have a fleeting curiosity or a deep-seeded desire to cheat, the Internet rolls out the red carpet for you to do so. Social networks and dating sites, specifically Facebook, Match.com, and (of course porn sites) are paving the way for more men and women to stray, according to a fresh new survey from the research team behind YourTango.com. YourTango is a community of relationship and sex experts dedicated to exploring and strengthening relationships.
According to the study, 50 percent of respondents believe that the Internet is a catalyst for cheating; 59 percent of experts agree that pornography encourages cheating and 90 percent say that dating sites such as Match.com will provide the opportunity to cheat.
Only seven percent of respondents indicated that Facebook activity leads to cheating.
AshleyMadison.com, the website for married folks who are seeking sex partners, have surveyed 11,453 fathers who are members of their site and found that certain husbands are more likely to cheat than others: The cheating husband will be in his 40s, married for a decade and has two children who are 10 years old or older.
The cheating husband will work in the IT department, IT/engineer (10.6 percent), banking industry (8.2 percent), education (6.5 percent), in the medical field (4.6 percent) or law.
The cheating wife, after a review of 2,865 women who are registered on AshleyMadison.com will be in her 30s, married for five years or less, and has a daughter who is under the age of three. Also, she will be a teacher, stay-at-home mom, or work in the medical field according to the survey.
Oddly, the online hookups are not fueled by a need for sex, they are overwhelmingly about a need to feel desirable or important, followed by a need to communicate (or be listened to) and in third place, is sexual satisfaction.
“This data is consistent with YourTango’s previous research that underscores the real problem for most couples is less about sex and more about feeling valued and communicating successfully,” states Andrea Miller, CEO and Founder of YourTango. “Emotional affairs constitute the betrayal a whopping 40 percent of the time. It’s the lack of closeness that overwhelmingly leads to cheating and discord.”
What do you think? Have you had a hookup online?
