Since most people have spent months locked down with their immediate family members during the pandemic, you might think fewer of them are cheating on their partners, but you’d be wrong. It turns out, affairs have gone virtual (just like pretty much everything else in our lives). New research from two psychologists from The University of Tennessee finds pandemic-related stress is straining relationships and driving people to dating apps, or to reconnect with their exes online.
In their research, Kristina Coop Gordon and Erica A. Mitchell say technologies like FaceTime, online dating services and smartphones are allowing cheaters to have virtual affairs. So the fact their in-person meetups are limited isn’t stopping their infidelity. The psychologists obtained data from an unnamed dating website for married people which shows 17-thousand new people signed up for the service every day during the pandemic, compared to the 15-hundred daily new member sign-ups in 2019.
And it seems people are also reaching out to their exes during the pandemic, despite being in committed relationships. Researchers from the Kinsey Institute surveyed 1-thousand adults between the ages of 30 and 50 and 13% of them admitted to contacting a former flame in the months since the coronavirus hit. They gave various reasons for getting back in touch, but the majority of married folks say they were hoping to have sex with their ex or rekindle a romance with them.
Source: Insider