According to two studies conducted by Israeli researcher Professor Gurit Birnbaum of Reichman University’s Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, online flirtation can be detrimental to in-person relationships.
The study shows that people are more likely to feel strongly about a flirted-with stranger online than they are about their actual relationship..The studies looked at the ability of long-term monogamous partners to resist fleeting temptations.
The other half of the participants were paired with a researcher who flirted with them during the talk, while the other half were paired with a member of the study team who kept objectivity in conversations.As opposed to those who were neutral in the conversation, individuals who were flirted with saw their companion negatively on both “conscious and unconscious levels” of the experiment.
In the second trial, after the talks, participants were instructed to describe a fantasy. The intensity of desire in both their real-life and fantasy partners was then evaluated by assessors who dissected the fantasies. According to the research, people who were flirted with had greater fantasies about their potential romantic partners.
