ABSTRACT
Many couples live a portion of their lives in a long-distance
relationship (LDR). This includes a large number of dating
college students as well as couples who are geographicallyseparated
because of situational demands such as work. We
conducted interviews with individuals in LDRs to
understand how they make use of video chat systems to
maintain their relationships. In particular, we have
investigated how couples use video to “hang out” together
and engage in activities over extended periods of time. Our
results show that regardless of the relationship situation,
video chat affords a unique opportunity for couples to share
presence over distance, which in turn provides intimacy.
While beneficial, couples still face challenges in using
video chat, including contextual (e.g., location of partners,
time zones), technical (e.g., mobility, audio/video quality,
networking), and personal (e.g., a lack of physicality
needed by most for intimate sexual acts) challenges.