Managing Long Distance Relationships Through Technology

Long distance friendships have always existed but are much more prevalent in today’s society. While friendships are typically maintained through occurring face-to-face social interactions and physical self-disclosure, we are seeing more friendships blossom through different technologies and online social media platforms. As a society we are noticing that the best friends we could ever have might not be the friends who live down the street from us, we can find others to relate to using the tools that we are being provided. 

Using social media to find friends is not that difficult as there are many online chat rooms, Instagram accounts, or Twitter group chats that are strictly designed to bring others together with specific topics. For example, years ago I personally joined a twitter group chat that was for Ariana Grande fans. Within minutes of joining, I was already messaging with 5 different people outside of the main chat, as well as participating in a discussion happening in the main chat. This means that you can realistically search up any topic you are interested in and find other individuals who may be passionate about the same topics. From there you begin to message with them online, maybe even set up a Facetime or Zoom call, and before you know it you have a best friend in a completely different time zone. We can examine this process under Social Penetration Theory, as we are able to initiate communication with others online and continue initiating communication until self-disclosure is prevalent. With this constant communication with our online friendships, we are able to maintain relational closeness and build bonds with others. The idea of online friendships has really evolved over the course of technological enhancement. 

When online chatting, we are no longer only speaking to each other on the phone, but we are sending other things throughout the day that show others that we care and are thinking about them. A good example of this is sending your friend a GIF, sticker, meme, or an emoji. An emoji is a text symbol that usually conveys a meaning. According to Aria Aghalarpour, “emoji’s have rich emotional meanings, and they are often used to express emotions in online communication. Each individual emoji has a specific meaning that applies to any given scenario, with emoji’s relating to facial expressions being universally understood.” (Aghalarpour, 2024). While these things don’t typically have words written on them, this is an example of how nonverbal communication is implemented in online friendship scenarios. “Nonverbal communication is a fundamental aspect of human interaction that plays a crucial role in conveying information and emotions without the use of words. Nonverbal communication complements and enriches verbal language, allowing individuals to express affective states, intentions, and attitudes.” (Abbas & Fatima, 2023). This example of nonverbal communication in today’s online long-distance friendships shows how friendship maintenance is so much more than the words that we are physically saying. What started off as skyping your friend in another state, turned into facetiming or even keeping a daily Snapchat streak for friendship check-ins, and as technology advances, we continue to find new ways to maintain our long-distance friendships.

Managing long-distance friendship expectations differs from managing long-distance romantic relationships, as friendships typically require less pressure from parties involved. While there may still be pressure to reach out to online friends every now and then these are extrinsic motivators to keep our relationships intact. We can examine this under the Social Information Processing Theory, as individuals can use online communication channels to share personal information in which they can develop trust with one another. According to a study by Li & Chan, “Communication quality is crucial to relationship satisfaction because interpersonal relationships are shaped and maintained by social interaction, especially for friendship which is voluntary and requires two parties to communicate to sustain the friendship. ” (Li & Chan, 2025). With this in mind, we can take note of the importance of checking in with your long-distance friendship in a manner that works for your own interpersonal relationship. This can definitely be a learning curve, as you and your friend must figure out what kinds of communication you’d like to engage in to maintain your long-distance friendship. Yaoguo Geng, et al., explains how interpersonal forgiveness is extremely important in maintaining any kind of relationship, but especially important in long-distance relationships. Geng, et al., defines interpersonal forgiveness as “an emotion-focused coping strategy for dealing with interpersonal and social stress and was found to correlate with few positive outcomes such as lower levels of neuroticism and higher levels of agreeableness.” (Geng et al., 2025). Interpersonal forgiveness is important in relationships as it can help strengthen bonds by using collaborative problem-solving for the end goal of maintaining a friendship or relationship, especially in long-distance scenarios. 

While online friendships can be extremely beneficial to our need for social connection and interactions, there are some negative sides to connecting with others online such as joining groups that support violence or groups that ignore cries about negative mental health statuses. According to Duradoni, et al., “scholars have highlighted issues such as problematic smartphone usage, social media addiction, and phubbing, as significant challenges posed by this technological revolution.” (Duradoni, et al., 2024). These issues that surround online friendships and relationships should be examined. It’s no surprise that the younger generations have problems with communicating in face-to-face scenarios, and that is strictly due to the fact that smartphone usage was all that they witnessed growing up. Problematic smartphone usage can in fact lead to smartphone addiction in which individuals feel that they cannot live without doing anything on their phone. Social media addiction can set unrealistic standards or expectations for an individual. Both smartphone and social media addiction can result in phubbing, which is the act of ignoring someone you are with by looking at your smartphone. Friendship phubbing is a learned behavior, as when one individual begins to ignore the other by being on their phone, the other individual tends to mirror this action by choosing to look at their personal phone instead. While these can be negative aspects to smartphone use and online platforms, what’s important about the use of this media is to have some kind of moderation. Smart phone moderation can be as simple as putting some restrictions on daily apps, choosing to put phones completely away or face down when you are chatting with friends via laptop, or setting a schedule as to when you are able to call your long-distance friends on the phone. 

One thing to keep in mind is that it is significantly easier for newer generations to maintain their online friendships due to their knowledge of social media platforms and technology. While older generations do still keep in touch with their long-distance friends, the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory states that “with increasing age, people invest in particular significant relationships and disengage from other social relationships.” (Stevic, et al., 2021). This emphasizes how younger generations are more likely to reach out to new individuals via social media to begin online friendships, whereas older generations mainly use technology to check in with long-distance friends they have known for a while. 

Today, online friendships are extremely common, and technology has helped the evolution of long distance friendship maintenance. Online friendships are easier to manage with newfound social media apps and phone features. Overall online friendships do positively impact individuals as they are able to find meaningful connections without being limited to the people they see on a day-to-day basis. 

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever joined an online community, chat room, or Instagram page for social purposes?
2. What challenges have you faced in long-distance communication friendships, and what have you done to overcome these challenges?
3. Do you feel differently engaging in self-disclosure via online forums opposed to in person? Is either easier or harder? 

References

Abbas, M., & Fatima, M. (2025). Exploration of the Link Between Nonverbal Communication, Affectivity, and Demographics. Psychology in the Schools, 62(5), 1323–1331. https://doi-org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.1002/pits.23392

Aghalarpour, A. (2024). Can You Tell I’m Startled? Review of Litigation, 43(2), 289–316.

Duradoni, M., Severino, F. P., Bellotti, M., & Guazzini, A. (2024). How Mattering and Anti‐Mattering Experiences Across Offline and Online Environments Contribute to People’s Digital Life Balance and Social Media Addiction. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 34(6), 1–12. https://doi-org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.1002/casp.70008

Geng, Y., Cheng, Z., Shi, L., Zhan, T., Hu, Z., & Jin, W. (2025). Dark Triad and Interpersonal Forgiveness: The Mediating Role of Interpersonal Relationship Satisfaction. Behavioral Sciences (2076-328X), 15(2), 237. https://doi-org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.3390/bs15020237

Li, X., & Chan, M. (2025). Is Availability Pressure Always Detrimental? From Availability Pressure to Relationship Satisfaction Through Compulsive Checking of Smartphone and Need Satisfaction. Behaviour & Information Technology, 44(8), 1681–1694. https://doi-org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2369631

Stevic, A., Schmuck, D., Matthes, J., & Karsay, K. (2021). “Age Matters”: A Panel Study Investigating the Influence of Communicative and Passive Smartphone Use On Well-Being. Behaviour & Information Technology, 40(2), 176–190. https://doi-org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.1080/0144929X.2019.1680732